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.

"What do you suppose was the matter?" Challis was filling his pipe, as he asked this question of Mr. Eldridge.

"Mean to say you don't know?"

"I certainly don't. Nobody has told me."

"I ain't any help. Don't ask me—that's all! Don't put it on me to say!" Mr. Eldridge, however, implies that his attitude is one of Discretion, not Ignorance. For he closes one eye, an action that can bear no other interpretation. He also shakes his head continuously and gently, as one who would convey to an interviewer the hopelessness of cross-examination.

"I suppose it was nothing but an upset. The weather's trying." It had really been unusually normal. But Mr. Challis was talking as gentlemen do when they are lighting a pipe, and thinking more about whether that's enough than about the topic in hand.

"Stomach!" said Mr. Eldridge, as nearly in a monosyllable as spelling permits. He repeated the word just half-a-dozen times in a run; then added this rider: "Say nervous system, when a lady. Puts it better."

"Something of that sort!" The pipe draws, and the smoker ought to look happy. He doesn't. But, then, the sympathetic murmur, with its unguessed import, of Mrs. Eldridge afar, is reaching his ears. Sudden appreciative gushes, and the firm tone of sound advice, are very unsettling when inarticulate. Cannot that fool John be made to throw a light on the mystery? Try again! "Charlotte told you all about it, John; you know she did!" The Christian names give cordiality. But John is not to be cajoled.

"Tellin's is tellin's," says he; and goes so far as to place a finger against one side of his nose, in token of perspicuity. "Put it at stomach!... Got the right time?"

"That clock's right."

"Then Greenwich is fast. Must see about gettin' off! Gettin' off—gettin' off—gettin' off!" Mr. Eldridge's repetitions no doubt have some bearing on his relations with his fellow-man, but it is not easy to say what. They seem to sanction concurrent event; that is the most one can say. He continued his last repetition even after he had taken his leave, saying he wouldn't wait for Lotty, because she was going the other way, and seeming quite content with his speech-work.

Hence, when Lotty reappeared hurriedly, and was surprised at his departure, having something she must say to him before he went, Challis got very little speech of the lady. All her limited time allowed her to say was that she had had a long talk with dear Marianne, and she was quite sure "it" would be all right now. Only she was convinced it would be so much better to say nothing to her—just to take no notice of "it" and let "it" drop. However, rush she must, or she would never catch John! And rush she did. And Challis grunted, but retired to his own room, and was soon absorbed in the Ostrogoths.

A stand-up fight between Titus and his wife at this period might have saved the situation. It would not have mattered one straw whether it had turned on Grosvenor Square or on the unsolved mystery of the photograph. Anything that led to fiery out-speech would have been a precursor of reconciliation.

It is difficult to tell anything with certainty about any love-affairs. Nobody ever knows anything at all about them; even the two constituents, if called on to explain and analyze themselves, make but a poor show. We know pretty well what the Poet is good for at a pinch. And as for the Man of the World and the Man in the Street—well!—all we can say is, give us the Woman of the World or the Woman in the Street; preferably the latter. But the duty of the story, in reference to the psychology of Challis's two marriages, is to tell what has come to light, or seems most probable—what it thinks or believes, not knows, about the depths of an unfathomable ocean.

Challis, then, being a young man irreligiously brought up—that is to say, made to understand that he was responsible for his behaviour, and that no attempt to shift his sins off on other shoulders would be held fair play—found himself at five-and-twenty in a position that would have been a sore trial to the strongest fortitude. He was, if not actually left in charge of a friend's recently married wife, at any rate in her close confidence; and, after her return to a home and friends from whom her marriage was a secret, the sole depository of that secret. He might never have fallen in love with Kate had they met on fair ground. But a youth unfamiliar with girl-kind that is not of his own belongings—sisters, to wit, and cousins earmarked as sisters—is always in danger if even a moderately pretty or attractive outsider takes him into her confidence. Challis's danger was all the greater owing to his terror of being treacherous to his friend. Perhaps, if the avowal of his passion had been legitimately possible, he might never have suspected himself of any passion to avow. But when you believe your conscience will brand you as a traitor to all eternity if you pursue a particular course, you naturally want to pursue it.

So it was a great relief to him when a letter, shown to him alone by the terrified girl, disclosed the atrocious deception that had been practised on her, and the miserable position in which she was placed. No wonder the avowal came. Our own belief is that it would have come, exactly the same, to a girl of almost any personality. Nothing could have averted it, short of a hare-lip, an isolated projecting tusk, or—suppose we say—onions. And this girl had pretty lips, and the interview occurred after tea.

Information is scanty about what followed. But no serious inquiry can have been made into the truth of Mr. Home's accusation against himself. The exact nature of it—the particular illegality he appealed to in support of his case—does not come to light. There really was no one to inquire, except Challis, unless the whole story had come out. It did not. A twelvemonth later Kate exchanged the name of Verrall—whether rightly or wrongly borne—for that of Challis, and two years later Master Bob was born, and his poor little mother had died of him. He showed no compunction, but kicked and made a horrible noise.

His father was only reasonably overwhelmed by his loss. It may be that, like many another inexperienced youth, he had not reckoned with the difficulties this world's Bobs and their like are apt to inflict on their family before they are formally enrolled in it, especially when the mothers they select have nervous temperaments. Challis felt, when he was left alone with the baby, that he had had a fierce tussle with Fate, and had come out of it severely punished. Probably, if his wife had survived, and Bob had lived to be a year old, without alarms about another brother or sister, his father would have been much less easily reconciled to his widowerhood. He would then have had a short draught of the nectar of life at its best; that is, if—as we suppose—a tempestuous excitability, which appeared two or three months after marriage, was entirely due to Master Bob. Mental unsoundness seems to have been denied; but, then, surely someone must have affirmed it?

As it was, Bob did a good deal—the best he could—to make up for the mischief he had done. He was a satisfaction to his father; and, being taken in hand by his Aunt Marianne, then a girl of eighteen, and in a sense adopted by her, became a strong connecting link between the two, and was really the agency that brought about Challis's second marriage four or five years later. It would have happened sooner, no doubt, but for the anomalous and grotesque condition of English Law, which, till a year or so since, made certain marriages diversely legal in different portions of the British Empire. The Angels might weep, but if they cried their eyes out it would still remain impossible for a man to wed with his deceased wife's sister on certain square yards of it. He had to be domiciled in a special portion of the Empire on which the sun never sets to do that, and yet live ungrundied. Marianne was slow to give in on the point. She had, in common with many of her countrywomen, a religious conviction—a belief in the plenary inspiration of any book in a religious binding—you know the sort. She may have had others, but the qualifications of her intelligence were not such as to enable bystanders to discover their exact nature. Alfred Challis certainly never did so. And this religious conviction did not give way until her brother-in-law deliberately wrote formal proposals to a Miss Bax, with elbows, whom she hated; to a fascinating young Jewish widow, who had lawlessly said she would just as soon marry a Gentile as a Jew; and to the daughter of a Unitarian minister. He took the three letters to her, and said, "Now, Polly Anne, which is it to be? You may burn two of these; the other one I post." Polly Anne promptly destroyed the two last; her brother-in-law was blasphemous and impious enough already without that, she said. But Emma Bax!—no, when she came to think of it, it was impossible! However, Challis directed the letter and, as it were, invested a postage-stamp in intimidation; so there was nothing for it but to throw her arms around his neck and surrender at discretion. Anything rather than Emma Bax! He kissed her tears away and said: "You know, Polly Anne, after all, you're only poor Kate's half-sister, when all's said and done!" This she found very consolatory.

It was a pity, at this juncture, that the girl's mother was a fool. Had she been a reasonably good guardian for her daughter, she would at least have insisted on the nuptials being celebrated in a land where the marriage would have been held lawful. But she contented herself with condemning the union in the abstract, and flinging Holy Writ—also in the abstract—at its perpetrators. The Bench of Bishops would have done the same, no doubt; but that Bench would have forbidden the banns, to a certainty. As she remained silent, and no outsider could be expected to screw himself up to prohibition-point in the case of a half-sister, the pair were wedded by a priest who knew nothing of them beyond their bare names, and never really became man and wife, as they would have done if they had been married sixty-odd years before; unless, indeed, some busybody had obtained a decree annulling the marriage—as the Law, with a keen sense of fun, directed in the days of our great-grandfathers.

The notable point in the psychology of these two marriages surely is that in neither case was the bride the free selection of the bridegroom, except in the sense that he was absolutely free to take or leave either. He never, strictly speaking, fell in love at all. He found himself in a well, and love trickled in. But even in this metaphor he never was over head and ears. He never wished to be a glove on any hand, to press any cheek. To call him passionately in love with either of the two sisters would have been just as absurd as to say that Romeo "got very fond" of Rosaline and Juliet. Exchange the phrases, and each fits its place. Challis got very fond of both his wives, being an affectionate sort of chap. But he remained a stranger to the divine intoxication which is known in its fulness only to Romeo and his like, and which some men never know at all.

Short of this last sort may often be found men who have escaped Romeo's experience early in life, yet whom some cunning context of circumstance may just upset, and convert for the moment into idiots as infatuated as the young Montague and Capulet we have cried over so many a time. For our own part, we count none quite safe from what is really an ennobling phase of sheer madness; except it be, for instance, a Charles the Second, a Rochester, a Tiberius, or a Joe Smith. Id genus omne is safe enough.