The Paliser case Part 49

"Paliser's, my dear young lady. However fict.i.tious the ceremony, you consented to be Paliser's wife."

"What if I did? It has nothing to do with it now."

"Just a little, perhaps. Did you hear Jones say that he would renew his acquaintance with Swinburne?"

"From the way he talks, one might think he knew him by heart."

"Yaas, he is very objectionable. But you are referring to the poet. He was referring to the jurist. The jurist wrote a very fine book. Let me quote a pa.s.sage from it. 'It is the present and perfect consent the which alone maketh matrimony, without either solemnisation or'--here, Dunwoodie, skipping the frank old English, subst.i.tuted--'or anything else, for neither the one nor the other is the essence of matrimony, but consent only. Consensus non concubitus facit matrimoniam.' Hum! Ha! In other words, whether marriage is or is not contracted in facie ecclesiae, it is consent alone that const.i.tutes its validity. You understand Latin?"

Ca.s.sy laughed. "I dream in it."

Dunwoodie laughed too. "Pleasant dreams to you always. But what I have quoted was the common law, and so remained until altered by the Revised Statutes, with which no doubt you are equally familiar."

Ca.s.sy smoothed her frock. "I was brought up on them."

"I don't need to tell you then that when adopted here they provided that marriage should be a civil contract. In so providing, they merely reaffirmed the existing common law. Subsequently, the law was changed.

The legislature enacted that a marriage must be solemnised by certain persons--ecclesiastic, judicial or munic.i.p.al--or else, that it should be entered into by written contract, which contract was to be filed in the office of the town clerk. Coincidentally the legislature prohibited any marriage contracted otherwise than in the manner then prescribed."

That morning Ca.s.sy had been to an agent, a saponacious person with a fabulous nose. At the moment the nose was before her. She was wondering whether it would scent out for her an engagement.

"However," Dunwoodie, twisting the edge of his towel, continued, "various amendments were afterward adopted and certain sections repealed. Among the latter was the one containing the prohibition which I have cited. In my opinion, it was not the intention of the legislature to repeal it. Yet, however that may be, repealed it was. Since then, or, more exactly, a few weeks ago, the enactments regarding the manner in which marriage must be solemnised were held to be not mandatory but directory, the result being that the law originally prevailing has now come again into operation, common-law marriages are as valid as before and----"

Here Dunwoodie flaunted the towel.

"And you are Mrs. Paliser."

Of the entire exposition, Ca.s.sy heard but that. It ousted the agent and his fabulous nose. She bristled.

"I can't be. I don't want to be. You don't seem to see that the clergyman was not a clergyman at all. He was one of the help there. I thought I told you. Why, there was not even a license! That man said he had one. It was only another of the whimsicalities that took me in."

Dunwoodie repocketing the towel, showed his yellow teeth. "A young gentlewoman who dreams in Latin, and who was brought up on the Revised Statutes, must be familiar with Byron. 'Men were deceivers ever.' Not long ago, a Lovelace whose history is given in the New York Reports conducted himself in a manner that would be precisely a.n.a.logous to that of your late husband, were it not that, instead of dying, he did what was less judicious, he married again--and was sent up for bigamy. He too had omitted to secure a license. He also entertained a lady with a fancy-ball. None the less, the Supreme Court decided that he had legally tied the matrimonial noose about him and that decision the Court of Appeals affirmed."

Ca.s.sy shook her pretty self. "Well, even so, I don't see what difference it makes, now at any rate. He is dead and that is the end of it."

"Hum! Not entirely. As widow you are ent.i.tled to a share in such property as your late husband possessed. How much, or how little, he did possess I cannot say. But I a.s.sume that such share of it as may accrue, will be--ha!--adequate for you."

"But he hadn't anything. He told me so."

"He didn't always tell you the truth though, did he? In any event it is probable that he left enough to provide for your maintenance."

Ca.s.sy threw up her hands. "Never in the world."

Dunwoodie again ran his eyes over the severity of her costume. "You think it would be inadequate?"

But Ca.s.sy was angry. "I don't think anything about it. Whether it would or would not be adequate, does not make the slightest difference. I won't take it."

"Ha! And why not?"

Ca.s.sy fumed. "Why not? But isn't it evident? That man had no intention of marrying me, no intention whatever of leaving me a cent."

"As it happens, he did both."

Ca.s.sy clenched her small fist. "No matter. He did not intend to and don't you see if I were to accept a ha'penny of his wretched money, I would be benefiting by a crime for which may G.o.d forgive my poor, dear father."

There was a point which the legislature had not considered, which not one of all the New York Reports construed, a point not of law but of conscience, a point for a tribunal other than that which sits in banco.

It floored Dunwoodie.

d.a.m.nation, she's splendid, he decided as, mentally, he picked himself up. But it would never do to say so and he turned on her his famous look.

"Madam, once your marriage is established, the money becomes rightfully and legally yours, unless----"

With that look he was frowning at this handsome girl who took law and order with such a high hand. But behind the frown was a desire, which he restrained, to hug her.

Frowning still he looked from Ca.s.sy to the door and there at a boy, who was poking through it a nose on which freckles were strewn thick as bran.

"Mr. Rymple, sir, says he has an appointment."

The old ruffian, rising, turned to Ca.s.sy. "One moment, if you please."

The door, caught in a draught, slammed after him, though less violently than other doors that were slamming still. Would they never stop? Ca.s.sy wondered. Would they slam forever? Were there no rooms in life where she might enter and find the silence that is peace? Surely, some time, somewhere that silence might be hers.

She turned. Jones, looking extremely disagreeable, was walking in.

Ca.s.sy, closing her ears to those doors, exclaimed at him. "Here's a pretty how d'ye do. Mr. Dunwoodie says I am Mrs. Paliser."

"That afternoon, when you sent your love to my cat, I could have told you that. In fact I did."

From Jones' air and manner you would have said that he was willing and able to bite a ten-penny nail.

Ca.s.sy did not notice. "It appears, too, that I am ent.i.tled to some of his wretched money."

"It is unfortunate I did not know that also."

"I believe you did. But I sha'n't take it."

Jones drew a chair. Hatefully he looked her up and down.

"You are quite right. Sixty years ago there was but one millionaire in the country. The plutocrat had not appeared in the street, he had not even appeared in the dictionary. The breed was unknown. To-day there are herds of such creatures. I was reading the statistics recently and they depressed me beyond words. It is always depressing to know how much money other people have. You are quite right not to suffer poor devils to be depressed by you."

Mrs. Yallum! thought Ca.s.sy, who said as much; "I don't know what you are talking about."

"You are very intelligent. I am talking small change."

Ca.s.sy gave a shrug. "Mr. Dunwoodie said I would have enough to live on.

I can do as well as that myself, thank you."

"No doubt," Jones snarled. "I am even sure you could do worse. It is extraordinary how much one can accomplish in refusing a dollar or two that might save another man's life. To h.e.l.l with everybody! That is the n.o.ble att.i.tude. I admire your spirit. A handful of bank-notes are crying at you: 'I'm yours, take me, give me to the wounded, to the starving!'

Not a bit of it. The Viscountess of Casa-Evora is too proud. That's superb."