The capricious April weather had changed for the better. The rain had ceased. The sky was clear. The sun was shining.
As our party stood on the steps of the City Hall, waiting for their carriage to come up, Le spoke aside to the father of Odalite:
“Uncle, it is but two o’clock. Can we not drive immediately to St. John’s rectory, and have the interrupted marriage of yesterday completed? I suppose we would have to begin again at the beginning and have it all over again. Still that would give ample time to catch the New York express train, and reach the city in time to secure the Russ a for Liverpool.”
While Le spoke Mr. Force regarded him with amazement. When Le ceased Mr. Force replied:
“No, certainly not, my dear boy. No such plan can be entertained for a single moment. We do not know, since that scoundrel’s return, whether Odalite is free to marry. Nor shall we ever know until the date of Lady Mary Anglesea’s death is definitely ascertained. If she did not die until the twenty-fifth of August, 18—, as the fellow insists that she did not, then was the ceremony he went through with the Widow Wright no marriage at all, and the rites performed at All Faith between himself and Odalite legal and binding. You know that as well as I do, Le.”
The young man’s face grew dark with despair.
“In any case you will never give her up to him!” he cried.
“Never, so help me Heaven! Nor can I give her to you, Le, until she shall be proved to be free.”
“I thought, when the judge remanded her to your custody and dismissed the case, it was—his action was equivalent to declaring her free.”
“He had no power to do that. But in a doubtful case, when the self-styled ‘husband’ cannot prove his right to the woman in question, who is claimed by her father as his unmarried daughter and a minor, it is clearly the proper course to deliver her into the keeping of her father, always providing the father be a proper man to take the charge. No, Le, the judge has simply left the case where he found it. You might have noticed, too, that he referred to my daughter as Odalite Anglesea, otherwise Odalite Force.’”
“I thought he quoted that from the writ.”
“He did, yet his doing so was significant.”
“Oh, Uncle Abel, is there no way out of all this misery? Uncle Abel, it is worse than death! Is there no help for us under the sun?” demanded the youth, with a gesture of despair.
“Yes, Le. Be patient.”
“I have been patient for three long years, only to be grievously disappointed at the end!” bitterly exclaimed the boy.
“Come, Le, listen to my plan. You know that we are all invited over to England to pay a long-promised visit to my brother-in-law, the Earl of Enderby. You know that you and Odalite were to have gone there after your marriage tour to join us at Castle Enderby.”
“And that plan has all fallen through with the rest,” complained Le.
“Not entirely, my boy. You cannot have a honeymoon anywhere just now. But we can go abroad together, and spend the summer in England. We can take advantage of our visit to investigate the particulars of Lady Mary Anglesea’s death. If we find that she died previous to the marriage of that villain with the Widow Wright, then was that marriage legal, and Mrs. Ann Anglesea is Angus Anglesea’s lawful wife, and our Odalite is free. If this should be the case, Le, I would offer no obstacle, suggest no delay, to your immediate marriage. By the way, Le, was that file of the Times you spoke of a complete one?”
“Oh, no, sir. Nor could I find a complete file in the city. From Mr. Herbert’s file the twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth and thirtieth of August were missing, and there was no notice of Lady Mary Anglesea’s death in any that remained.”
“Well, we can find a perfect file in London. We can also find the Anglesea parish register, and possibly some monument or tablet or memorial window of the deceased lady which will give us the true date of her death. We cannot possibly fail to find it, Le. We shall be sure to do so. And if the discovery proves Odalite to be free, you shall have her the next hour, or as soon as a minister can be found to marry you.”
“And, on the other hand, uncle, if the facts do not show her to be legally free, still you will never, never yield her to that man?” anxiously persisted Le.
“I have told you no—never! I would see her dead first. Be assured of that. Why, Le, that scoundrel knows that he can never touch a hair of my daughter’s head.”
“Then why did he enact the villainy of last night and this morning if it were not in the hope of getting her into his possession?” demanded the youth.
“He acted from a low malice, to annoy us; if possible, to humiliate us. He knew that that was all he could do, and he did it. There, Le. There is your car, and the other young folks are going to board it. Follow them, my boy.”
“But may I not go in the carriage with you and Odalite?” pleaded the youth.
“No, dear boy. There is no room for you. Miss Grandiere goes with us. We are four, and fill the four seats. Hurry, or you will miss the car.”
Le ran down the steps, and saved the car.
All this time Odalite had been standing in the rear of her father, and between her mother and her friend Sophie Grandiere. Her veil was down, and it was so doubled as to hide her face. All three of the ladies were silent.
When Le had left his side, Mr. Force turned toward them, and said:
“I ordered the carriage to come for us at about a quarter after two. I had no idea we should be out before that hour, and have to wait.”
“Well, we have not had long to wait, and here it comes,” replied Mrs. Force.
And the party walked down the steps, entered the carriage, and drove homeward.
The Forces, except when they gave a dinner, always kept up their old-fashioned, wholesome habit of dining in the middle of the day. Their usual dinner hour was half-past two, and they reached home just in time to take off their bonnets before sitting down to the table.
After dinner Mr. Force called a consultation of Mrs. Force, Odalite, Leonidas, Wynnette, Elva and Rosemary, in the library, for he said that all who were interested in the question about to be raised should have a voice in the discussion.
When they were all seated he began, and said:
“Mrs. Force and myself have called you here, my children, to help us to decide whether, under the circumstances that have lately arisen, we shall go to England as soon as we can get off, or whether we shall carry out our first intention of waiting until June for the school commencement at which you three younger ones expect to graduate. Court-martial fashion, we will begin with our youngest. Little Rosemary, what do you think about it? Shall we wait two months longer, until you graduate, or shall we go at once? You are to go with us whenever we go, and so you are an interested party, you know. Come, speak up, without fear or favor!”
But it was no easy matter to get the tiny creature to speak at all.
Looking down, fingering her apron, she managed at last to express her opinion that Mr. and Mrs. Force ought to decide for them all.
“No, no! That won’t do at all! No shirking your duty, Liliputian! Tell us what you think,” laughed the master of the house.
“Well—then—I—think—it would be nice to go at once.”
“And miss your scholastic honors?”
“Yes,” muttered the child, looking shyly up from her long eyelashes. “I would rather miss them than miss going to England.”
“All right. One for the immediate voyage. Now, Elva?”
“Papa, I wish you would let Odalite settle the question. We all would like Odalite to have her own way,” said the affectionate little sister.
“Quite right; we shall come to Odalite presently; but, in the meantime, we want your own unbiased feeling about it.”
“Indeed, indeed, my feeling is to do just what Odalite wants me to do! Please, please, let me hear what Odalite says before I decide.”
“Very well, then, so you shall. Now, Wynnette?”
“Papa, I think we had best go at once. It is very warm here in the latter part of May, and all through June, and it will be so delightful on the ocean——”
“But your graduation, Wynnette?”
“Oh, papa! we shall not lose anything by losing those exercises. We are learning nothing new now. We are going over and over the old ground to make ourselves verbally perfect for the examination. So, indeed, by leaving school at once we shall lose nothing but the parade of the commencement.”
“We score two votes for the immediate voyage. Odalite, my dear, you have the floor.”
“Papa, if I could go to Europe immediately without detriment to the education of these girls, I should be very glad to go. But I think everything should yield to the interests of their education,” said Odalite.
“You have heard what Wynnette says, my dear—that they are adding nothing to their stock of knowledge in the last two months at school. Only perfecting themselves, in parrot-like verbiage, to answer questions at the coming examination. They will lose nothing but the pageantry of the exhibition.”
“Then, papa, I think I would like to go very soon.”
“And now, so would I, papa,” put in Elva.
“Quite so! Four in favor of the voyage. Now, Le?”
“Uncle, you know my anxiety that we be off. I would go by telegraph, if I could.”
“Five! Well, my dears, Mrs. Force and myself are already agreed that, upon all accounts, it is best that we should sail by the first Liverpool steamship on which we can procure staterooms for so large a party as ours is likely to be. I will write to the agent of the Cunard line by to-night’s mail. It is very necessary that we should go to England, without delay, not only to see our relative, Lord Enderby, whose health is in a very precarious condition, but also to investigate matters in which Odalite’s and Le’s welfare and happiness are deeply concerned. Rosemary, my dear, write and tell your aunt of our changed plans in regard to the time of the voyage. Children, this is the second of April. I think we will be able to sail by the twenty-third, at furthest. So you may all begin to get ready for your voyage,” said Mr. Force, rising to break up the conference.