Helen Vardon's confession
Naturally enough, my thoughts constantly came back to him. As to his
moral claim on me, it was null and void. Whether he had, as I
suspected, seen my father’s letter and deliberately left it unopened,
or whether he had simply neglected to look for it, made no difference.
It had been delivered to him, and thereupon our agreement had ceased
to exist. But if he had no moral claim, he had, apparently, a legal
hold on me which would have to be considered. If he could be induced
to surrender that, the position would be greatly simplified. And he
was ready to surrender it on a certain condition.
To Mr. Otway’s proposal my thoughts came back again and again. The
condition that he had made was not an unreasonable one, or, at least,
it did not appear so to me. My father had died when they were alone
together: they had admittedly been quarrelling; my father bore the
mark of a heavy blow; and Mr. Otway had been found standing over the
body with a loaded stick in his hand. The appearances suggested that
he had killed my father. And yet I was convinced that he had not.
Profoundly loathing him as the cause of all my misfortunes, I still
felt that he was, in this respect, an innocent man; and common justice
demanded that he should not be made to suffer for a crime that he had
not committed.
Now what was my position in the affair? Practically I held the scales
of justice. The one absolutely damning fact was in my sole possession;
and I alone, in all probability, would appreciate the misleading
appearances which that fact created. That was my dilemma. I could make
known the fact itself to those who should judge him, but could I make
them understand how little it was worth? It seemed very doubtful. _I_
had trembled for my father’s safety and had seen him come in at the
gate, already in a dangerous condition. _They_ had not. They might
easily fail to weigh his state of health against that one, apparently,
sinister fact of the loaded stick. In short, it came to this: that if
I mentioned what I had seen, Mr. Otway ran a serious risk of being
punished for a crime which he had not committed, whereas if I
refrained from mentioning it, justice would take its proper course.
That, I think, is, in effect, how I argued. Neither the logician nor
the jurist will commend me. But women have their own ways of looking
at things, and one of those ways is somewhat to confuse conviction
with knowledge. A thing firmly believed is apt to present itself as a
thing known. I had come to the conclusion that Mr. Otway was innocent
of my father’s death, and having done so, had unconsciously treated
his innocence as a fact that was within my knowledge.
After lunch, I telephoned to the office, asking Mr. Jackson, my
father’s managing clerk, to come and see me; and while I was waiting
for him, I took down from the study shelves a treatise of the Law of
Husband and Wife, and turned over those of its unsavoury pages which
dealt with suits for nullity. Apparently Mr. Otway was right. So far
as I could make out, the circumstances of our marriage afforded no
grounds for such a suit. I was married irrevocably. My complete
freedom was gone beyond recall; I should have to be content with such
incomplete freedom as is conferred by a deed of separation.
I had just returned the book to the shelf when Mr. Jackson arrived and
entered the room looking very flurried and uncomfortable.
“What a dreadful thing this is, Miss Vardon!” he exclaimed. “Shocking!
Shocking! So unexpected! I need not say how much we all sympathize
with you.”
“It is very kind of you,” I said, offering him a chair.
“Not at all,” he rejoined. “It is a terrible misfortune for all of us.
Would it distress you very much to tell me how it happened?”
“It was for that purpose that I sent for you, Mr. Jackson; to tell you
exactly what has happened and to ask your advice”; and here I gave him
a brief account of the events of the morning.
At the mention of my marriage he looked profoundly surprised, but
also, I thought, distinctly relieved; but he did not make any comment
until I had finished the whole tragic story, when he remarked:
“I am very glad to hear that you are married, Miss Vardon--or rather,
I should say, Mrs. Otway--to a man of such very substantial means, if
I am rightly informed.”
“Why are you glad?” I asked.
“Because,” he replied, “it disposes of rather a difficulty. Your
father was a man of great abilities and an excellent lawyer, but he
was somewhat inattentive to the financial side of his profession. I am
afraid you would have been left rather badly provided for.”
“I am sorry to hear that,” said I, “because I am not proposing to live
with Mr. Otway. I have asked him to agree to a separation.”
Mr. Jackson raised his eyebrows. “May I ask why?” he enquired.
“I don’t want to go into details just now,” I answered, “but I may say
that the marriage was an affair of accommodation; I supposed my father
to be in a position of embarrassment, and I made the arrangement with
Mr. Otway without his knowledge. It turns out that I was mistaken. He
was not embarrassed. When the marriage took place, I was under a
misapprehension and I was misled by Mr. Otway. Accordingly, I have
asked to have a separation deed drawn up.”
“Does he agree to the separation?”
“He has not yet, but I think he will; so I shall have to consider my
resources, after all.”
“But,” Mr Jackson objected, “he will have to make you an allowance.”
“That,” I said, “is impossible. If I repudiate the marriage, I could
not, of course, allow him to support me.”
“Why not?” demanded Mr. Jackson. “He is legally bound to. You are his
wife. While the marriage stands, you can’t marry anybody else.
Besides, he is not likely to raise any objection. He is a lawyer, you
know.”
“I am not thinking of him: I am thinking of myself. I wish to be under
no obligations to Mr. Otway, and I shall not accept any assistance
from him.”
“I am sorry to hear you say that,” Mr. Jackson said, gloomily;
“because I am afraid you will be rather badly off. The business is a
very personal one, and is worth practically nothing to sell. If I were
a qualified solicitor, I might be able to carry it on. But I’m not;
and I doubt if anyone would care to buy the good-will at any price.
Still, I’ll see what can be done. As to your father’s will, I happen
to know that you are the residuary legatee--practically the sole
legatee--but what that amounts to, I shouldn’t like to say. Mighty
little, I fear. However, it’s of no use to worry you with these
matters now. If you will authorize me to look into your father’s
affairs, I will let you know exactly how things stand; and if I could
be of service to you in any way, I hope you’ll let me know. There’s
the funeral, for instance----”
He paused suddenly, and ran an uncomfortable eye along the rows of law
books on the shelves.
“You are very kind, Mr. Jackson,” I said, “and your help will be
invaluable. As my father’s friend, I should like you to take charge of
the funeral arrangements, if you would be so good.”
The rest of our conversation was concerned with the various things
which had to be done during the next day or two, and it left with a
feeling of the warmest gratitude to this quiet and rather dry man of
business, whose sympathy took such a practical and acceptable form.
It was past six o’clock when the red-eyed Jessie came to the study to
announce that Mr. Otway was waiting in the drawing-room; and there I
found him wandering restlessly round by the walls and making a show of
examining the pictures. He was still very pale and looked haggard and
weary, but yet he held out his hand to me with a certain confidence.
“I think, Helen,” said he, “that you will be a little relieved at my
news. I have seen Dr. Bury, and he tells me that the coroner will be
satisfied with his evidence and Dr. Sharpe’s.”
“Do you mean that there is to be no inquest?” I demanded, with sudden
suspicion.
“No, no,” he replied. “Of course, there will be an inquest. But the
coroner thinks that the circumstances do not call for a _post-mortem_.
I thought you would be glad to know that. The--er--body will remain
where it is until the jury have viewed it, and then it can be brought
here for the--ah--the funeral.”
I nodded but made no comment on this statement, and he continued after
a brief pause:
“I suppose, Helen, you would like me to act for you in regard to the
funeral arrangements.”
“Thank you, Mr. Otway,” I replied, “but Mr. Jackson has very kindly
undertaken that for me.”
He looked somewhat crestfallen at this, and said, deprecatingly:
“I am sorry you did not leave the arrangements to me. It would have
looked better.” Which it undeniably would--from his point of view.
As I made no rejoinder, there followed a slightly uncomfortable pause,
during which he was evidently bracing himself up for what was the real
object of his visit. At length he began nervously:
“Have you been able to give any more consideration to my proposal,
Helen?”
“Yes,” I answered; “I have thought about it a good deal. Perhaps we
had better go into the study, which is more out of the way of the
servants than this.”
We crossed the hall, and, when we had entered the study and closed the
door, I resumed:
“I may as well say, Mr. Otway, that I am prepared to accept your
statement. On reflection, I believe that your account of what happened
is true.”
“Thank God for that!” he ejaculated. “I felt sure you believed me,
Helen; but it is an unspeakable relief to hear you say so. And I am
sure you will agree with me that the--the apparently incriminating
circumstance need not be mentioned.”
“I might even agree to that,” I replied; “but there must be a clear
understanding. I am not going to say anything that is not strictly
true.”
“Oh, certainly not!” he agreed. “All that I ask is that you refrain
from volunteering a perfectly unnecessary and misleading statement.
Will you promise to do that?”
“I am not sure that I have any right to make such a promise, Mr.
Otway; but still, on the conditions that you mentioned, I am prepared
to do so.”
His relief was really pathetic. Its intensity made me understand what
torments of terror he had been suffering. He flung out his hands as if
he would have embraced me, but drew back, as I said, coldly:
“You are prepared on your side, Mr. Otway, to carry out your part? You
agree to execute a deed of separation, as I asked?”
“If you insist,” he replied. “It’s a hard bargain, but if you hold me
to it, I have no choice. Would not a short, informal separation do?”
“No, Mr. Otway,” I replied firmly, “it would not. I am acting somewhat
against my conscience in agreeing to suppress this fact, and I want
full compensation for doing so. I must have a legally-valid deed of
separation.”
“Very well, Helen,” said he; “if it must be, it must. I hope that,
later, you will take a kinder view of our relations, but meanwhile I
will do exactly as you wish. I have drafted out a deed, in a simple
form, with as little legal verbiage as possible. If its terms satisfy
you, I will copy it out and sign it.”
He handed me a sheet of paper on which the deed was drafted, and I
read it through carefully. Like the other documents that he had drawn
up, it was lucid, simple and concise, and set forth quite fairly the
conditions to which he had agreed, with one exception. It determined
automatically at the end of three months.
“I can’t agree to that,” I said. “There must be no specified time; it
is to be just a separation.”
“But,” he exclaimed, “you don’t propose that the separation should
last for ever, do you?”
That was precisely what I did propose, but I thought it politic not to
express myself too definitely.
“It is impossible,” I replied, “to say what may happen in the future;