‘Thanks to these safeguards, not a shadow of suspicion followed them when they returned to England. They first settled in Devonshire, merely
because they were far removed there from that northern county in which Mr Vanstone’s family and connections had been known. On the part of his surviving relatives, they had no curious investigations to dread. He was totally estranged from his mother and his elder brother. His married sister had been forbidden by her husband (who was a clergyman) to hold any communication with him, from the period when he had fallen into the deplorable way of life which I have described as following his return from Canada. Other relations he had none. When he and Miss Blake left Devonshire, their next change of residence was to this house. Neither courting, nor avoiding notice; simply happy in themselves, in their children, and in their quiet rural life; unsuspected by the few neighbours who formed their modest circle of acquaintance to be other than what they seemed – the truth in their case, as in the cases of many others, remained undiscovered until accident forced it into the light of day.
‘If, in your close intimacy with them, it seems strange that they should never have betrayed themselves, let me ask you to consider the circumstances, and you will understand the apparent anomaly. Remember that they had been living as husband and wife, to all intents and purposes (except that the marriage service had not been read over them) for fifteen years before you came into the house; and bear in mind, at the same time, that no event occurred to disturb Mr Vanstone’s happiness in the present, to remind him of the past, or to warn him of the future, until the announcement of his wife’s death reached him, in that letter from America which you saw placed in his hand. From that day forth – when a past which he abhorred was forced back to his memory; when a future which she had never dared to anticipate was placed within her reach – you will soon perceive, if you have not perceived already, that they both betrayed themselves, time after time; and that your innocence of all suspicion, and their children’s innocence of all suspicion, alone prevented you from discovering the truth.
‘The sad story of the past is now as well known to you as to me. I have had hard words to speak. God knows I have spoken them with true sympathy for the living, with true tenderness for the memory of the dead.’
He paused, turned his face a little away, and rested his head on his hand, in the quiet undemonstrative manner which was natural to him. Thus far, Miss Garth had only interrupted his narrative by an occasional word, or by a mute token of her attention. She made no effort to
conceal her tears; they fell fast and silently over her wasted cheeks, as she looked up and spoke to him. ‘I have done you some injury, sir, in my thoughts,’ she said, with a noble simplicity. ‘I know you better now. Let me ask your forgiveness; let me take your hand.’
Those words, and the action which accompanied them, touched him deeply. He took her hand in silence. She was the first to speak, the first to set the example of self-control. It is one of the noble instincts of women, that nothing more powerfully rouses them to struggle with their own sorrow than the sight of a man’s distress. She quietly dried her tears; she quietly drew her chair round the table so as to sit nearer to him when she spoke again.
‘I have been sadly broken, Mr Pendril, by what has happened in this house,’ she said, ‘or I should have borne what you have told me, better than I have borne it to-day. Will you let me ask one question, before you go on? My heart aches for the children of my love – more than ever my children now. Is there no hope for their future? Are they left with no prospect but poverty before them?’
The lawyer hesitated before he answered the question.
‘They are left dependent,’ he said, at last, ‘on the justice and the mercy of a stranger.’
‘Through the misfortune of their birth?’
‘Through the misfortunes which have followed the marriage of their parents.’
With that startling answer he rose, took up the will from the floor, and restored it to its former position on the table between them.
‘I can only place the truth before you,’ he resumed, ‘in one plain form of words. The marriage has destroyed this will, and has left Mr Vanstone’s daughters dependent on their uncle.’
As he spoke, the breeze stirred again among the shrubs under the window.
‘On their uncle?’ repeated Miss Garth. She considered for a moment, and laid her hand suddenly on Mr Pendril’s arm. ‘Not on Michael Vanstone!’
‘Yes: on Michael Vanstone.’
Miss Garth’s hand still mechanically grasped the lawyer’s arm. Her whole mind was absorbed in the effort to realize the discovery which had now burst on her.
‘Dependent on Michael Vanstone!’ she said to herself. ‘Dependent on their father’s bitterest enemy? How can it be?’
‘Give me your attention for a few minutes more,’ said Mr Pendril,
‘and you shall hear. The sooner we can bring this painful interview to a close, the sooner I can open communications with Mr Michael Van-stone, and the sooner you will know what he decides on doing for his brother’s orphan daughters. I repeat to you that they are absolutely dependent on him. You will most readily understand how and why, if we take up the chain of events where we last left it – at the period of Mr and Mrs Vanstone’s marriage.’
‘One moment, sir,’ said Miss Garth. ‘Were you in the secret of that marriage at the time when it took place?’
‘Unhappily, I was not. I was away from London – away from England at the time. If Mr Vanstone had been able to communicate with me when the letter from America announced the death of his wife, the fortunes of his daughters would not have been now at stake.’
He paused: and before proceeding further, looked once more at the letters which he had consulted at an earlier period of the interview. He took one letter from the rest, and put it on the table by his side.
‘At the beginning of the present year,’ he resumed, ‘a very serious business necessity, in connection with some West Indian property possessed by an old client and friend of mine, required the presence either of myself, or of one of my two partners, in Jamaica. One of the two could not be spared: the other was not in health to undertake the voyage. There was no choice left but for me to go. I wrote to Mr Vanstone, telling him that I should leave England at the end of February, and that the nature of the business which took me away afforded little hope of my getting back from the West Indies before June. My letter was not written with any special motive. I merely thought it right – seeing that my partners were not admitted to my knowledge of Mr Vanstone’s private affairs – to warn him of my absence, as a measure of formal precaution which it was right to take. At the end of February I left England, without having heard from him. I was on the sea when the news of his wife’s death reached him, on the fourth of March; and I did not return until the middle of last June.’
‘You warned him of your departure,’ interposed Miss Garth. ‘Did you not warn him of your return?’
‘Not personally. My head-clerk sent him one of the circulars which were despatched from my office, in various directions, to announce my return. It was the first substitute I thought of, for the personal letter which the pressure of innumerable occupations, all crowding on me together after my long absence, did not allow me leisure to write. Barely a month later, the first information of his marriage reached me in a
letter from himself, written on the day of the fatal accident. The circumstances which induced him to write, arose out of an event in which you must have taken some interest – I mean the attachment between Mr Clare’s son and Mr Vanstone’s youngest daughter.’
‘I cannot say that I was favourably disposed towards that attachment at the time,’; replied Miss Garth. ‘I was ignorant then of the family secret: I know better now.’
‘Exactly. The motive which you can now appreciate is the motive that leads us to the point. The young lady herself (as I have heard from the elder Mr Clare, to whom I am indebted for my knowledge of the circumstances in d
etail) confessed her attachment to her father, and innocently touched him to the quick by a chance reference to his own early life. He had a long conversation with Mrs Vanstone, at which they both agreed that Mr Clare must be privately informed of the truth, before the attachment between the two young people was allowed to proceed further. It was painful in the last degree, both to husband and wife, to be reduced to this alternative. But they were resolute, honourably resolute, in making the sacrifice of their own feelings; and Mr Vanstone betook himself on the spot to Mr Clare’s cottage. – You no doubt observed a remarkable change in Mr Vanstone’s manner on that day; and you can now account for it?’
Miss Garth bowed her head; and Mr Pendril went on.
‘You are sufficiently acquainted with Mr Clare’s contempt for all social prejudices,’ he continued, ‘to anticipate his reception of the confession which his neighbour addressed to him. Five minutes after the interview had begun, the two old friends were as easy and unrestrained together as usual. In the course of conversation, Mr Vanstone mentioned the pecuniary arrangement which he had made for the benefit of his daughter and of her future husband – and, in doing so, he naturally referred to his will, here, on the table between us. Mr Clare, remembering that his friend had been married in the March of that year, at once asked when the will had been executed; received the reply that it had been made five years since; and, thereupon, astounded Mr Vanstone by telling him bluntly that the document was waste paper in the eye of the law. Up to that moment, he, like many other persons, had been absolutely ignorant that a man’s marriage is, legally, as well as socially, considered to be the most important event in his life; that it destroys the validity of any will which he may have made as a single man; and that it renders absolutely necessary the entire reassertion of his testamentary intentions in the character of a husband. The statement of this plain fact appeared to overwhelm Mr Vanstone. Declaring that his friend Had laid him under an obligation which he should remember to his dying day, he at once left the cottage, at once returned home, and wrote me this letter.’
He handed the letter open to Miss Garth. In tearless, speechless grief, she read these words:
‘My dear Pendril, – Since we last wrote to each other, an extraordinary change has taken place in my life. About a week after you went away, I received news from America which told me that I was free. Need I say what use I made of that freedom? Need I say that the mother of my children is now my Wife?
‘If you are surprised at not having heard from me the moment you got back, attribute my silence, in great part – if not altogether – to my own total ignorance of the legal necessity for making another will. Not half an hour since, I was enlightened for the first time (under circumstances which I will mention when we meet) by my old friend, Mr Clare. Family anxieties have had something to do with my silence, as well. My wife’s confinement is close at hand; and, besides this serious anxiety, my second daughter is just engaged to be married. Until I saw Mr Clare to-day, these matters so filled my mind that I never thought of writing to you, during the one short month which is all that has passed since I got news of your return. Now I know that my will must be made again, I write instantly. For God’s sake, come on the day when you receive this – come and relieve me from the dreadful thought that my two darling girls are at this moment unprovided for. If anything happened to me, and if my desire to do their mother justice, ended (through my miserable ignorance of the law) in leaving Norah and Magdalen disinherited, I should not rest in my grave! Come, at any cost, to yours ever, ‘A. V.’
‘On the Saturday morning,’ Mr Pendril resumed, ‘those lines reached me. I instantly set aside all other business, and drove to the railway. At the London terminus, I heard the first news of the Friday’s accident; heard it, with conflicting accounts of the numbers and names of the passengers killed. At Bristol, they were better informed; and the dreadful truth about Mr Vanstone was confirmed. I had time to recover myself, before I reached your station here, and found Mr Clare’s son waiting for me. He took me to his father’s cottage; and there, without losing a moment, I drew out Mrs Vanstone’s will. My object was to secure the only provision for her daughters which it was now possible to make. Mr Vanstone having died intestate, a third of his fortune would go to his widow; and the rest would be divided among his next of kin. As children born out of wedlock, Mr Vanstone’s daughters, under the circumstances of their father’s death, had no more claim to a share in his property, than the daughters of one of his labourers in the village. The one chance left, was that their mother might sufficiently recover to leave her third share to them, by will, in the event of her decease. Now you know why I wrote to you to ask for that interview – why I waited day and night, in the hope of receiving a summons to the house. I was sincerely sorry to send back such an answer to your note of inquiry as I was compelled to write. But while there was a chance of the preservation of Mrs Vanstone’s life, the secret of the marriage was hers, not mine; and every consideration of delicacy forbade me to disclose it.’
‘You did right, sir,’ said Miss Garth; ‘I understand your motives, and respect them.’
‘My last attempt to provide for the daughters,’ continued Mr Pendril, ‘was, as you know, rendered unavailing by the dangerous nature of Mrs Vanstone’s illness. Her death left the infant who survived her by a few hours (the infant born, you will remember, in lawful wedlock) possessed, in due legal course, of the whole of Mr Vanstone’s fortune. On the child’s death – if it had only outlived the mother by a few seconds, instead of a few hours, the result would have been the same – the next of kin to the legitimate offspring took the money; and that next of kin is the infant’s paternal uncle, Michael Vanstone. The whole fortune of eighty thousand pounds has virtually passed into his possession already.’
‘Are there no other relations?’ asked Miss Garth. ‘Is there no hope from any one else?’
‘There are no other relations with Michael Vanstone’s claim,’ said the lawyer. ‘There are no grandfathers or grandmothers of the dead child (on the side of either of the parents) now alive. It was not likely there should be, considering the ages of Mr and Mrs Vanstone, when they died. But it is a misfortune to be reasonably lamented that no other uncles or aunts survive. There are cousins alive; a son and two daughters of that elder sister of Mr Vanstone’s, who married Archdeacon Bartram, and who died, as I told you, some years since. But their interest is superseded by the interest of the nearer blood. No, Miss Garth; we must look facts as they are resolutely in the face. Mr Vanstone’s daughters are Nobody’s Children; and the law leaves them helpless at their uncle’s mercy.’
‘A cruel law, Mr Pendril – a cruel law in a Christian country.’
‘Cruel as it is, Miss Garth, it stands excused by a shocking peculiarity
in this case. I am far from defending the law of England, as it affects illegitimate offspring. On the contrary, I think it a disgrace to the nation. It visits the sins of the parents on the children; it encourages vice by depriving fathers and mothers of the strongest of all motives for making the atonement of marriage; and it claims to produce these two abominable results in the names of morality and religion. But it has no extraordinary oppression to answer for, in the case of these unhappy girls. The more merciful and Christian law of other countries, which allows the marriage of the parents to make the children legitimate, has no mercy on these children. The accident of their father having been married, when he first met with their mother, has made them the outcasts of the whole social community: it has placed them out of the pale of the Civil Law of Europe. I tell you the hard truth – it is useless to disguise it. There is no hope, if we look back at the past: there may be hope, if we look on to the future. The best service which I can now render you, is to shorten the period of your suspense. In less than an hour I shall be on my way back to London. Immediately on my arrival I will ascertain the speediest means of communicating with Mr Michael Vanstone; and will let you know the result. Sad as the position of the two sisters
now is, we must look at it on its best side; we must not lose hope.’
‘Hope?’ repeated Miss Garth. ‘Hope from Michael Vanstone!’
‘Yes; hope from the influence on him of time, if not from the influence of mercy. As I have already told you, he is now an old man; he cannot, in the course of nature, expect to live much longer. If he looks back to the period when he and his brother were first at variance, he must look back through thirty years. Surely, these are softening influences which must affect any man? Surely, his own knowledge of the shocking circumstances under which he has become possessed of this money, will plead with him, if nothing else does?’
‘I will try to think as you do, Mr Pendril – I will try to hope for the best. Shall we be left long in suspense before the decision reaches us?’
‘I trust not. The only delay on my side will be caused by the necessity of discovering the place of Michael Vanstone’s residence on the Continent. I think I have the means of meeting this difficulty successfully; and the moment I reach London, those means shall be tried.’
He took up his hat; and then returned to the table on which the father’s last letter, and the father’s useless will, were lying side by side. After a moment’s consideration, he placed them both in Miss Garth’s hands.
‘It may help you in breaking the hard truth to the orphan sisters,’ he said, in his quiet, self-repressed way, ‘if they can see how their father refers to them in his will – if they can read his letter to me, the last he ever wrote. Let these tokens tell them that the one idea of their father’s life, was the idea of making atonement to his children. “They may think bitterly of their birth,” he said to me, at the time when I drew this useless will; “but they shall never think bitterly of me. I will cross them in nothing: they shall never know a sorrow that I can spare them, or a want which I will not satisfy.” He made me put those words in his will, to plead for him when the truth which he had concealed from his children in his lifetime, was revealed to them after his death. No law can deprive his daughters of the legacy of his repentance and his love. I leave the will and the letter to help you: I give them both into your care.’