Vexed; or, The Wife's Sister/Chapter 4

"TWO for Breda," cried Dick, who had left the breakfast-table upon hearing the postman's knock. Dick invariably made it his duty to fetch the letters, as it gave him an opportunity of tormenting the unfortunate receivers.

"Only on one condition," he said, as Albreda held out her hand impatiently. She was a little anxious, as she had not heard from Kitty for nearly a week.

"Now, Dick, don't be tiresome. I hope there's one from Kitty."

"On one condition," continued the inexorable brother; and Albreda was obliged to give in.

"Well, what is it? only make haste."

"That you tell me who the other is from. I don't know the writing, and the postmark is Delamere. He held it out of reach till at last she promised him.

​"I wonder why Graham has written?" she said, opening his letter first.

The news alarmed her; and though it would be difficult to leave home at once, she felt that everything else must give way, and as General Darcy too was anxious, they had arranged before breakfast was over that she should start early the following morning.

Dick, who was very fond of his married sister, was quite subdued by the news, and even forgot the bargain he had made before delivering the second letter.

This was fortunate for Albreda, who had just glanced at the signature, and was rather startled to see the name of Edward Foley. It was a long letter, and though she felt an intense interest and wonder as to its contents, her mind was too sadly preoccupied to allow her to read it then. She put it in her pocket, and determined to wait till she was alone and quiet.

With such a short notice she had much to do in the way of preparation for the journey of the next day, and not till the contents of her box had reached the brim and she had left it in that satisfactory condition, when only a few last things are necessary before the final locking up—not till then, alone in her bedroom, did she again look at that letter of which she had felt so strangely conscious all day.

​To minds constituted as was hers, there is a peculiar pleasure to be derived from an unread letter. She was in the habit of keeping letters from those she cared about long unlooked at. Perhaps it was a weakness, but it gave scope for imagination to work and to take its own way, and she often laughed at the meagre reality in comparison of her guesses at the contents.

This Albreda, who was so formidable to her friends and who inspired such respect and even awe, had, after all, though only known to herself, many a little feminine weakness. She liked the power that was her possession while she still studied the envelope.

At present, she felt the cover held exactly what she wanted. She was mistress of herself and of it, but as soon as it was read all would be reversed. Some one else would have the power; her mind and feelings would be swayed by the contents. She hesitated a moment before giving up her freedom. Then she read. It was a straightforward letter, and began by informing her that Edward Foley was intending to run down to his friends at Tunleigh in a day or two, and much hoped that he should have the pleasure of finding her at home. "I am anxious to continue our conversation," he wrote, "as I have been taking your advice and studying the original text of those disputed verses in Leviticus. ​I find that what you stated is correct, and that the expressions, 'a woman to her sister' and 'a man to his brother,' are to be found forty-two times in the Bible. I also find that in thirty-two of these they are translated merely as 'one thing to another,' and in the remaining ten they are rendered so as to denote similar objects, with one exception; so that as far as that verse is concerned, I will honestly give it up altogether as having nothing to do with the subject and being a most arbitrary translation. I think you will admit, however, that such marriages were allowed till about the fourth century."

"I admit nothing of the kind," was Albreda's mental reply.

Here was this letter, as she expected, saying what it liked, and she was powerless to answer. So she read on—

"The prohibition, you will remember, took place at the time of Constantius. Is not this strongly in favour of the Bill? The forbidding of it appears to have been a simple innovation."

Albreda was longing to refute the argument at once—it irritated her that she must wait till she could write; but seeing that the subject did not seem to be continued, and that there was still another closely written half-page, she read on more rapidly, her heart beating quickly, and ​alternate sensations of cold and heat coming over her.

"I do not wish to imply that my proposed visit is only or by any means chiefly to renew our discussion, interesting though it has been to me. I have been ordered off to Ceylon on engineering work for six months or so, and I feel I cannot leave England without seeing you again. I shall not come, however, without your consent, which I shall impatiently await.

"Yours very faithfully,

"Edward Foley."

It was a bad preparation for a long journey to be awake, tossed from side to side by alternate anxiety for her sister and wondering joy for herself. There was certainly not much in the letter to arouse any particular expectation, and after she had read it again and again there seemed less each time to warrant the strange perturbation of her mind. He had only said that he wanted to see her again and asked her leave. She repeated this over and over to herself, but, vague though it appeared, something seemed to say, and to say very positively too, that a crisis was coming.

"Who was your letter from?" said Dick, the last thing as he stepped out of the railway carriage in which his sister was seated.

​He had only just remembered about it, but the train was on the move.

"Why, I thought you had forgotten," said Albreda, gaining time.

"I will know," said the boy, keeping up with the carriage, and threatening to stand on the step till she told him. He knew that persuasion would prevail, and risked an uncomfortable tumble to gain his point.

"Oh, do take care, Dick! It was from Mr. Foley."

"Ha, ha, ha! I shall have to go home and prepare another wedding speech."

She felt vexed with him, but could not leave him in displeasure, so she looked out of the window, and watched him standing with his hands in his pockets in a perfect paroxysm of laughter. Fortunately she had the compartment to herself, or her secret would have been made painfully public.

Now for the letters again—Graham's first. She encouraged herself by hoping that he might be a little fidgety, as Kitty did not know that he had written.

Then that other letter was unfolded. She knew every word of the last half-page by heart, so she only went over it once again, and whiled away the rest of her journey by concocting an answer. It was unfortunate that she was leaving ​Tunleigh just as Edward Foley proposed a visit there. This was her answer:—

"Dear Mr. Foley,

"I am sorry that I am obliged to leave home suddenly to-day, as I have not very good accounts of my sister's health. It would have been a great pleasure to me to have met you again before you leave England, but as that cannot be, I must answer your letter as best I can in writing. To begin with, I was delighted to see that you had once for all dismissed that much-abused eighteenth verse of Leviticus xviii. from the subject. So much for the scriptural recognition of such marriages; but now you are bringing historical facts to bear, and I allow that your statement is, at first sight, rather confounding. Still, I do not find that it will bear investigation. You say that no such prohibition existed until the middle of the fourth century, and I accept the fact; but is not this fact still more overwhelming-that there is no single instance of such a marriage being recognized by any Christian Church until as late as the fifteenth century, when the King of Portugal was granted a dispensation from Pope Alexander VI. to allow of such a union? If no positive law existed in those early centuries, it was because the unlawfulness of such unions had not been questioned. When ​it did arise, what was the first recorded answer given to the clamour for a Deceased Wife's Sister Bill?

"I wish the Bishop of Cæsarea could take his place in Parliament, and answer now as he answered in the year 356: 'We have no such customs here; it is against all our customs to allow such marriage; it is polluted,'" etc.

Albreda concluded by wishing Mr. Foley a pleasant trip to Ceylon, and hoped that if he took exception to anything in her letter he would answer it.

Then she was actually guilty of this postscript: "It does seem to me so very plain that God's written law, the custom of the Church, and the natural law of the heart (which question we have not gone into) are positively against this iniquitous Bill; and all this beside the question to which every woman ought to demand an answer—Have we not a right to equal marriage laws with men? Or does the relation of a woman to her sister differ from the relation of a man to his brother?"

While Miss Darcy's mind was dwelling with painful interest on the subject of her letter, the life-tragedy that was to give emphasis to her burning words was being enacted.

Kitty, in her pretty pale blue morning gown, was presiding at the breakfast-table in a pleasant ​sunny room that opened upon the conservatory. A blaze of red and pink geraniums came through the open French window.

While the little wife worked away at the miniature windlass, which formed an important part in the making of the coffee, Graham wandered out among the flowers to talk to the parrot, and to pick a choice scented blossom for Kitty.

The maid had just come in with the letters, and recognizing one in Albreda's handwriting, Kitty took it from her, and laid it down while she continued the coffee-making. Taking it up afterwards, she was surprised to see it addressed to her husband. Determined not to be foolish again, she shook off the little creeping fear that would make itself felt. She put the letter with the two others on his plate, and called him in; and then pretending to be intent over her operations, glanced at him from behind the urn.

Graham took up a letter from Edward Foley first, telling him of his call to Ceylon. This he read aloud. Then seeing the Warburton postmark on the next, he looked up at his wife, who immediately dropped her eyes, and thinking she had not seen it he put it into his pocket, to avoid raising hopes which might be disappointed.

The quick blood rushed to Kitty's face and left it again as suddenly, while she trifled with ​her knife, screening herself behind the friendly urn. Graham, deep in the contents of his third letter, did not observe her.

It was a fierce inward struggle that made her chest heave and her limbs tremble, but, fragile though she was, her will conquered. She could see no possible explanation of her husband's strange conduct. He made no allusion to the letter during breakfast, and afterwards, leaving the table somewhat hastily, hurried into the garden, where she saw him reading it. A few minutes later he found her in her boudoir, looking rather pale, he thought, but otherwise noticing nothing unusual about her.

"News for you, Kitty," he said, holding out the letter. "Guess who's coming?"

"Not Breda?" she said; "surely she cannot leave papa now?"

"But I have made her," said Graham, delighted to feel that he was giving her the pleasant surprise.

"You didn't write, did you, Graham?"

"Yes, Kitty. I was sure you ought to have some one, as I am away so much in the day. Even now you look as if you wanted a little nursing."

"I am really all right, dear. I think we had better stop her, as she ought not to leave home now."

​"Why—read this letter—she is on her way by this time, and will get here early in the afternoon."

Graham was looking at her, waiting for the happy smile that he expected would greet the news. He was suddenly struck instead by a weary look on her face, and she did not answer the questioning gaze. Perhaps, after all, she had not wanted their happy time together to be interrupted so soon; and yet she had so often talked of his asking her sister.

"You will be glad to have Albreda, won't you, Kitty?"

"Oh yes, if you think it better," she answered, languidly.

He could not understand the resigned expression, and almost felt that he was unwittingly injuring her.

"Will you drive with me to the station to meet her this afternoon?"

"Yes, dear, if you like." Still the patient tone.

"If you like! You are tired this morning, Kitty?"

"A little."

She turned away from him, and pulling out a small table-drawer, began to arrange the contents.

Graham was disappointed. He had hoped to ​have given her a happy surprise. There was the slightest possible shade of reproach in the way in which he said—

"I thought you would have been so pleased, Kitty."

He lingered for a few minutes, letting down the venetian blinds to get them quite straight and pulling them up carefully. He hoped she would say something to explain her unusual manner. But she went on with the arranging of the drawer in silence.

"Well, I must be off," he said, still looking towards her, but meeting with no response.

As Graham took his way through the pretty garden and out towards the farm beyond, he had an uneasy consciousness that all was not as it was wont to be between him and his wife. He knew that he had shut the door a little too decidedly as he left the room, stung by her apparent disregard of his presence. He saw he had displeased her, but being entirely ignorant of the cause, felt himself aggrieved. His brow was clouded as he went about among his men, giving orders in rather a peremptory way, and declining to consult with the too talkative foreman.