I gave my name to the servant as ‘Mrs Armadale’, and was shown into the waiting-room. The very fire itself was dying of damp in the grate. The only books on the table were the doctor’s Works, in sober drab covers; and the only object that ornamented the walls was the foreign Diploma (handsomely framed and glazed), of which the doctor had possessed himself by purchase, along with the foreign name.
After a moment or two, the proprietor of the Sanatorium came in, and held up his hands in cheerful astonishment at the sight of me.
‘I hadn’t an idea who “Mrs Armadale” was!’ he said. ‘My dear lady, have you changed your name, too? How sly of you not to tell me when we met this morning! Come into my private snuggery – I can’t think of keeping an old and dear friend like you in the patients’ waiting-room.’
The doctor’s private snuggery was at the back of the house, looking out on fields and trees, doomed but not yet destroyed by the builder. Horrible objects in brass and leather and glass, twisted and turned as if they were sentient things writhing in agonies of pain, filled up one end of the room. A great book-case with glass doors extended over the whole of the opposite wall, and exhibited on its shelves long rows of glass jars, in which shapeless dead creatures of a dull white colour floated in yellow liquid. Above the fireplace hung a collection of photographic portraits of men and women, enclosed in two large frames hanging side by side with a space between them. The left-hand frame illustrated the effects of nervous suffering as seen in the face; the right-hand frame exhibited the ravages of insanity from the same point of view; while the space between was occupied by an elegantly-illuminated scroll, bearing inscribed on it the time-honoured motto, ‘Prevention is better than Cure.’
‘Here I am, with my galvanic apparatus,8 and my preserved specimens, and all the rest of it,’ said the doctor, placing me in a chair by the fireside. ‘And there is my System mutely addressing you just above your head, under a form of exposition which I venture to describe as frankness itself. This is no madhouse, my dear lady.9 Let other men treat insanity, if they like – I stop it! No patients in the house as yet. But we live in an age when nervous derangement (parent of insanity) is steadily on the increase; and in due time the sufferers will come. I can wait as Harvey waited, as Jenner waited.10 And now, do put your feet up on the fender, and tell me about yourself. You are married, of course? And what a pretty name! Accept my best and most heartfelt congratulations. You have the two greatest blessings that can fall to a woman’s lot; the two capital H’s, as I call them – Husband and Home.’
I interrupted the genial flow of the doctor’s congratulations at the first opportunity.
‘I am married; but the circumstances are by no means of the ordinary kind,’ I said seriously. ‘My present position includes none of the blessings that are usually supposed to fall to a woman’s lot. I am already in a situation of very serious difficulty – and before long I may be in a situation of very serious danger as well.’
The doctor drew his chair a little nearer to me, and fell at once into his old professional manner and his old confidential tone.
‘If you wish to consult me,’ he said softly, ‘you know that I have kept some dangerous secrets in my time, and you also know that I possess two valuable qualities as an adviser. I am not easily shocked; and I can be implicitly trusted.’
I hesitated even now, at the eleventh hour, sitting alone with him in his own room. It was so strange to me to be trusting to anybody but myself! And yet, how could I help trusting another person, in a difficulty which turned on a matter of law?
‘Just as you please, you know,’ added the doctor. ‘I never invite confidences. I merely receive them.’
There was no help for it; I had come there not to hesitate, but to speak. I risked it, and spoke.
‘The matter on which I wish to consult you,’ I said, ‘is not (as you seem to think) within your experience as a professional man. But I believe you may be of assistance to me, if I trust myself to your larger experience as a man of the world. I warn you, beforehand, that I shall certainly surprise and possibly alarm you before I have done.’
With that preface, I entered on my story, telling him what I had settled to tell him – and no more.
I made no secret, at the outset, of my intention to personate Armadale’s widow; and I mentioned without reserve (knowing that the doctor could go to the office and examine the will for himself) the handsome income that would be settled on me in the event of my success. Some of the circumstances that followed next in succession, I thought it desirable to alter or conceal. I showed him the newspaper account of the loss of the yacht – but I said nothing about events at Naples. I informed him of the exact similarity of the two names; leaving him to imagine that it was accidental. I told him, as an important element in the matter, that my husband had kept his real name a profound secret from everybody but myself; but (to prevent any communication between them) I carefully concealed from the doctor what the assumed name under which Midwinter had lived all his life really was. I acknowledged that I had left my husband behind me on the Continent; but when the doctor put the question, I allowed him to conclude – I couldn’t with all my resolution tell him positively! – that Midwinter knew of the contemplated Fraud, and that he was staying away purposely so as not to compromise me by his presence. This difficulty smoothed over – or, as I feel it now, this baseness committed, – I reverted to myself, and came back again to the truth. One after another, I mentioned all the circumstances connected with my private marriage, and with the movements of Armadale and Midwinter, which rendered any discovery of the false personation (through the evidence of other people) a downright impossibility. ‘so much,’ I said, in conclusion, ‘for the object in view. The next thing is to tell you plainly of a very serious obstacle that stands in my way.’
The doctor, who had listened thus far without interrupting me, begged permission here to say a few words on his side before I went on.
The ‘few words’ proved to be all questions – clever, searching, suspicious questions, – which I was, however, able to answer with little or no reserve, for they related, in almost every instance, to the circumstances under which I had been married, and to the chances for and against my lawful husband if he chose to assert his claim to me at any future time.
My replies informed the doctor, in the first place, that I had so managed matters at Thorpe-Ambrose as to produce a general impression that Armadale intended to marry me; in the second place, that my husband’s early life had not been of a kind to exhibit him favourably in the eyes of the world; in the third place, that we had been married without any witness present who knew us, at a large parish church in which two other couples had been married the same morning, to say nothing of the dozens on dozens of other couples (confusing all remembrance of us in the minds of the officiating people) who had been married since. When I had put the doctor in possession of these facts – and when he had further ascertained that Midwinter and I had gone abroad among strangers immediately after leaving the church; and that the men employed on board the yacht in which Armadale had sailed from Somersetshire (before my marriage) were now away in ships voyaging to the other end of the world – his confidence in my prospects showed itself plainly in his face. ‘so as far as I can see,’ he said, ‘your husband’s claim to you (after you have stepped into the place of the dead Mr Armadale’s widow) would rest on nothing but his own bare assertion. And that I think you may safely set at defiance. Excuse my apparent distrust of the gentleman. But there might be a misunderstanding between you in the future, and it is highly desirable to ascertain beforehand exactly what he could or could not do under those circumstances. And now that we have done with the main obstacle that I see in the way of your success, let us by all means come to the obstacle that you see next!’
I was willing enough to come to it. The tone in which he spoke of Midwinter, though I myself was responsible for it, jarred on me horribly, and roused for the moment some of the old folly of feeling whic
h I fancied I had laid asleep for ever. I rushed at the chance of changing the subject, and mentioned the discrepancy in the register between the hand in which Midwinter had signed the name of Allan Armadale, and the hand in which Armadale of Thorpe-Ambrose had been accustomed to write his name, with an eagerness which it quite diverted the doctor to see.
‘Is that all?’ he asked, to my infinite surprise and relief, when I had done. ‘My dear lady, pray set your mind at ease! If the late Mr Armadale’s lawyers want a proof of your marriage, they won’t go to the church-register for it, I can promise you!’
‘What!’ I exclaimed in astonishment; ‘do you mean to say that the entry in the register is not a proof of my marriage?’
‘It is a proof,’ said the doctor, ‘that you have been married to somebody. But it is no proof that you have been married to Mr Armadale of Thorpe-Ambrose. Jack Nokes or Tom Styles (excuse the homeliness of the illustration!) might have got the Licence, and gone to the church to be married to you under Mr Armadale’s name – and the register (how could it do otherwise?) must in that case have innocently assisted the deception. I see I surprise you. My dear madam, when you opened this interesting business you surprised me – I may own it now – by laying so much stress on the curious similarity between the two names. You might have entered on the very daring and romantic enterprise in which you are now engaged, without necessarily marrying your present husband. Any other man would have done just as well, provided he was willing to take Mr Armadale’s name for the purpose.’
I felt my temper going at this. ‘Any other man would not have done just as well,’ I rejoined instantly. ‘But for the similarity of the names, I should never have thought of the enterprise at all.’
The doctor admitted that he had spoken too hastily. ‘That personal view of the subject had, I confess, escaped me,’ he said. ‘However, let us get back to the matter in hand. In the course of what I may term an adventurous medical life, I have been brought more than once into contact with the gentlemen of the law, and have had opportunities of observing their proceedings in cases of, let us say, Domestic Jurisprudence. I am quite sure I am correct in informing you that the proof which will be required by Mr Armadale’s representatives will be the evidence of a witness present at the marriage, who can speak to the identity of the bride and bridegroom from his own personal knowledge.’
‘But I have already told you,’ I said, ‘that there was no such person present.’11
‘Precisely,’ rejoined the doctor. ‘In that case, what you now want, before you can safely stir a step in the matter, is – if you will pardon me the expression – a ready-made witness, possessed of rare moral and personal resources, who can be trusted to assume the necessary character, and to make the necessary Declaration before a magistrate. Do you know of any such person?’ asked the doctor, throwing himself back in his chair, and looking at me with the utmost innocence.
‘I only know You,’ I said.
The doctor laughed softly. ‘so like a woman!’ he remarked, with the most exasperating good-humour. ‘The moment she sees her object, she dashes at it headlong the nearest way. Oh, the sex! the sex!’
‘Never mind the sex!’ I broke out impatiently. ‘I want a serious answer – Yes or No?’
The doctor rose, and waved his hand with great gravity and dignity all round the room. ‘You see this vast establishment,’ he began; ‘you can possibly estimate to some extent the immense stake I have in its prosperity and success. Your excellent natural sense will tell you that the Principal of this Sanatorium must be a man of the most unblemished character—’
‘Why waste so many words,’ I said, ‘when one word will do? You mean No!’
The Principal of the Sanatorium suddenly relapsed into the character of my confidential friend.
‘My dear lady,’ he said, ‘it isn’t Yes, and it isn’t No, at a moment’s notice. Give me till to-morrow afternoon. By that time, I engage to be ready to do one of two things – either to withdraw myself from this business at once, or to go into it with you heart and soul. Do you agree to that? Very good – we may drop the subject then till to-morrow. Where can I call on you when I have decided what to do?’
There was no objection to my trusting him with my address at the hotel. I had taken care to present myself there as ‘Mrs Armadale’; and I had given Midwinter an address at the neighbouring post-office to write to, when he answered my letters. We settled the hour at which the doctor was to call on me; and, that matter arranged, I rose to go, resisting all offers of refreshment, and all proposals to show me over the house. His smooth persistence in keeping up appearances after we had thoroughly understood each other, disgusted me. I got away from him as soon as I could, and came back to my diary and my own room.
We shall see how it ends to-morrow. My own idea is that my confidential friend will say Yes.
November 24th. – The doctor has said Yes, as I supposed – but on terms which I never anticipated. The condition on which I have secured his services amounts to nothing less than the payment to him, on my stepping into the place of Armadale’s widow, of half my first year’s income – in other words, six hundred pounds!
I protested against this extortionate demand in every way I could think of. All to no purpose. The doctor met me with the most engaging frankness. Nothing, he said, but the accidental embarrassment of his position at the present time would have induced him to mix himself up in the matter at all. He would honestly confess that he had exhausted his own resources, and the resources of other persons whom he described as his ‘backers’, in the purchase and completion of the Sanatorium. Under those circumstances, six hundred pounds in prospect was an object to him. For that sum he would run the serious risk of advising and assisting me. Not a farthing less would tempt him – and there he left it, with his best and friendliest wishes, in my hands!
It ended in the only way in which it could end. I had no choice but to accept the terms, and to let the doctor settle things on the spot as he pleased. The arrangement once made between us, I must do him the justice to say that he showed no disposition to let the grass grow under his feet. He called briskly for pen, ink, and paper, and suggested opening the campaign at Thorpe-Ambrose by to-night’s post.
We agreed on a form of letter which I wrote, and which he copied on the spot. I entered into no particulars at starting. I simply asserted that I was the widow of the deceased Mr Armadale; that I had been privately married to him; that I had returned to England on his sailing in the yacht from Naples; and that I begged to enclose a copy of my marriage-certificate, as a matter of form with which I presumed it was customary to comply. The letter was addressed to ‘The representatives of the late Allan Armadale, Esq., Thorpe-Ambrose, Norfolk.’ And the doctor himself carried it away, and put it in the post.12
I am not so excited and so impatient for results as I expected to be, now that the first step is taken. The thought of Midwinter haunts me like a ghost. I have been writing to him again – as before, to keep up appearances. It will be my last letter, I think. My courage feels shaken, my spirits get depressed, when my thoughts go back to Turin. I am no more capable of facing the consideration of Midwinter at this moment than I was in the bygone time. The day of reckoning with him, once distant and doubtful, is a day that may come to me now, I know not how soon. And here I am, trusting myself blindly to the chapter of Accidents still!
November 25th. – At two o’clock to-day the doctor called again by appointment. He has been to his lawyers (of course without taking them into our confidence) to put the case simply of proving my marriage. The result confirms what he has already told me. The pivot on which the whole matter will turn, if my claim is disputed, will be the question of identity; and it may be necessary for the witness to make his Declaration in the magistrates’ presence before the week is out.
In this position of affairs, the doctor thinks it important that we should be within easy reach of each other, and proposes to find a quiet lodging for me in his neighbourhood. I am
quite willing to go anywhere – for, among the other strange fancies that have got possession of me, I have an idea that I shall feel more completely lost to Midwinter if I move out of the neighbourhood in which his letters are addressed to me. I was awake and thinking of him again last night. This morning I have finally decided to write to him no more.
After staying half an hour, the doctor left me – having first inquired whether I would like to accompany him to Hampstead to look for lodgings. I informed him that I had some business of my own which would keep me in London. He inquired what the business was. ‘You will see,’ I said, ‘to-morrow or next day.’
I had a moment’s nervous trembling when I was by myself again. My business in London, besides being a serious business in a woman’s eyes, took my mind back to Midwinter in spite of me. The prospect of removing to my new lodging had reminded me of the necessity of dressing in my new character. The time had come now for getting my widow’s weeds.