Without delay I snatched up the guttering candle and held it to my wife's countenance. You can conceive that 'twas with no pleasurable emotion I discovered I had inadvertently espoused the Dowager Marchioness of Falmouth, my adored Dorothy's grandmother; and in frankness I can't deny that the lady seemed equally dissatisfied: words failed us; and the newly wedded couple stared at each other in silence.
"Captain Audaine," said she, at last, "the situation is awkward."
"Sure, madam," I returned, "and that is the precise thought which has just occurred to me."
"And I am of the opinion," she continued, "that you owe me some sort of explanation. For I had planned to elope with Mr. Vanringham--"
"Do I understand your Ladyship to allude to Mr. Francis Vanringham, the play-actor, at present the talk of Tunbridge?"
She bowed a grave response.
"This is surprising news," said I. "And grant me leave to tell you that a woman of mature years, possessed of an abundant fortune and unassailable gentility, does not by ordinary sneak out of the kitchen door to meet a raddle-faced actor in the middle of the night. 'Tis, indeed, a circumstance to stagger human credulity. Oh, believe me, madam, for a virtuous woman the back garden is not a fitting approach to the altar, nor is a comedian an appropriate companion there at eleven o'clock in the evening."
"Hey, my fine fellow," says my wife, "and what were you doing in the back garden?"
"Among all true lovers," I returned, "it is an immemorial custom to prowl like sentinels beneath the windows of the beauteous adored. And I, madam, had the temerity to aspire toward an honorable union with your granddaughter."
She wrung her withered hands. "That any reputable woman should have nocturnal appointments with gentlemen in the back garden, and beguile her own grandmother into an odious marriage! I protest, Captain Audaine, the degenerate world of to-day is no longer a suitable residence for a lady!"
"Look you, sir, this is a cruel bad business," the Parson here put in. He was pacing the apartment in an altercation of dubiety and amaze. "Mr. Vanringham will be vexed."
"You will pardon me," I retorted, "if I lack pity to waste upon your Mr. Vanringham. At present I devote all funds of compassion to my own affairs. Am I, indeed, to understand that this lady and I are legally married?"
He rubbed his chin. "By the Lord Harry," says he, "'tis a case that lacks precedents! But the coincidence of the Christian names is devilish awkward; the service takes no cognizance of surnames; and I have merely united a Francis and a Dorothy."
"O Lord, Mr. What-d'ye-call-um," said I, "then there is but one remedy and that is an immediate divorce."
My wife shrieked. "Have you no sense of decency, Captain Audaine? Never has there been a divorce in my family. And shall I be the first to drag that honored name into a public court,--to have my reputation worried at the bar by a parcel of sniggering lawyers, while the town wits buzz about it like flies around carrion? I pray you, do not suggest any such hideous thing."
"Here's the other Francis," says the Parson, at this point. And it was,--a raffish, handsome, slender, red-haired fellow, somewhat suggestive of the royal duke, yet rather more like a sneak-thief, and with a whiff somewhere of the dancing-master. At first glance you recognized in the actor a personage, for he compelled the eye with a monstrous vividness of color and gesture. To-night he had missed his lady at their rendezvous, owing to my premature appearance, and had followed us post-haste.
"My Castalio!" she screamed. "My Beaugard!" She ran to him, and with disjointed talk and quavering utterance disclosed the present lamentable posture of affairs.
And I found the tableau they presented singular. My wife had been a toast, they tell me, in Queen Anne's time, and even now the lean and restless gentlewoman showed as the abandoned house of youth and wit and beauty, with here and there a trace of the old occupancy; always her furtive eyes shone with a cold and shifting glitter, as though a frightened imp peeped through a mask of Hecuba; and in every movement there was an ineffable touch of something loosely hinged and fantastic. In a word, the Marchioness was not unconscionably sane, and was known far and wide as a gallant woman resolutely oblivious to the batterings of time, and so avid of flattery that she was ready to smile on any man who durst give the lie to her looking-glass. Demented landlady of her heart, she would sublet that antiquated chamber to the first adventurer who came prepared to pay his scot in the false coin of compliment; and 'twas not difficult to comprehend how this young Thespian had acquired its tenancy.
But now the face of Mr. Vanringham was attenuated by her revelations, and the wried mouth of Mr. Vanringham suggested that the party be seated, in order to consider more at ease the unfortunate contretemps. Fresh lights were kindled, as one and all were past fear of discovery by this; and we four assembled about a table which occupied the centre of the apartment.
