CHAPTER XXV
THE UNWISHED-FOR PAST
That Mrs. Byfield was either unusually excited or was strung up to a pitch whereat nothing could strike her as unusual was immediately evident to the two men of law.
She showed no surprise at seeing either as they advanced to meet her, and her words were addressed, not to them, but to Georgina, who just then came along the hall to meet her.
"Where is Fanshawe?" she asked. "You got my telegram?"
"Gone down to the Safe Deposit," answered Georgina. "He'll be back presently."
Mrs. Byfield turned, then looked inquiringly at Semmerby.
"You’re surprised to see us here!" he said.
"No," she answered, "I’m surprised at nothing just now! "And here or at Selchester, it doesn't matter. We were going back by the afternoon train to see you. This gentleman was coming with me."
"Your son," said Semmerby, "has been asking what all this is about. I’m inclined to ask the same, Mrs. Byfield."
Mrs. Byfield turned to Georgina and pointed to the office.
"Ask them to show us into a private room, somewhere," she said. "I'll tell you everything in a few minutes," she continued, glancing at Semmerby. "Mr. Linthwaite there knows some of it. And I shall be glad to tell it to you while Fanshawe’s out of the way. I shall have to tell him of—things—later, when we’re alone."
She said no more until a waiter had shown them into a private parlour. Then she indicated the elderly clergyman.
"Mr. Winslow, vicar of Mingham Parva, in Berkshire," she said. "I went to see him yesterday about this. He’s been kind enough to get me some information I wanted and to come back with me to see you, Mr. Semmerby.
"The truth is," she continued, as they all sat down round a table, "I've kept back certain things until—well, until they can’t be kept back any longer. I told Georgina something of the truth on Sunday night, and she advised me to clear matters up, once for all. And so I had to come up to town, and to find Mr. Winslow—and now, as you're here, I will tell, and have done with it.
"Mr. Linthwaite," she exclaimed, after a pause during which she seemed to be reflecting, "you know that before ever I married Martin Byfield, I'd been married to Cradock Melsome, a relative of yours."
"Sorry to say I do, Mrs. Byfield," replied Linthwaite. "I am sorry for two reasons—first, I know Cradock to have been a bad lot, always; second, I regret to say he's alive."
He was watching her keenly as he said the last words, and he felt, rather than saw, that Semmerby, too, was waiting for the effect of this blunt announcement. But Mrs. Byfield showed no surprise. Instead, she nodded her head in acquiescence.
"So do I know he's alive," she answered. "He was brought to see me last week—twice—by his brother Charles, who's been living at Selchester for two years—on me! You know him, Mr. Semmerby. But he calls himself Christopher Mesham in Selchester."
The two solicitors exchanged glances.
"You know the effect of this, Mrs. Byfield," said Semmerby, after a pause. "It means that you were never legally married to Martin Byfield."
But Mrs. Byfield shook her head.
"It would mean that," she replied, "if I hadn't known something all these years, something that I never told to anybody but Martin Byfield. I've kept it quiet because I've a horror of raking things up, and I didn't want Fanshawe to know, and I hoped to end my days peaceably in Selchester without talk or gossip, which is impossible now, and because I'm easily got round, and lots of reasons.
"But it's got to come out. The truth is, I never was married to Cradock Melsome! Legally, anyway."
"Eh?" said Linthwaite. "You never were married to Cradock? But"
Mrs. Byfield leaned over the table, tapping it with an outstretched finger. She looked from Linthwaite to Semmerby, from Semmerby to Linthwaite.
"I went through a form of marriage with Cradock Melsome here in London," she answered. "And I believed it was all right. But it wasn't. Cradock Melsome, Mr. Linthwaite—you were Mr. John Herbert in those days—was already married! This gentleman married him, and his real wife is alive!"
The two solicitors, after a long stare at Mrs. Byfield, turned to the old clergyman.
"Can you speak as to this, sir?" asked Linthwaite.
"I can speak as to what I know," replied Mr. Winslow. "Mrs. Byfield has given me the date of her marriage to Cradock Melsome, which took place, as she says, here in London."
"Now, two years before that I married Cradock Melsome to a parishioner of my own, who still lives in my parish. I have been vicar of Mingham Parva for forty-one years."
"There's proof of this?" asked Linthwaite.
"I made a copy of the entry from my marriage registers last night for Mrs. Byfield," answered Mr. Winslow. "And as I say, the woman is alive. She can be produced."
"Who is she? Who was she?" demanded Semmerby.
"A young woman of my parish who, very unfortunately for herself, had a little money," answered the vicar. "Cradock Melsome used to come down there fishing. He persuaded her to marry him. The money, I believe, was soon gone. Then he disappeared."
"I had a little money, too," remarked Mrs. Byfield, "That soon went. But in my case it was I who disappeared. I'd had enough."
Semmerby looked at his fellow-solicitor as if asking for advice. And Linthwaite nodded at Mrs. Byfield.
"I've never heard anything that gave me much more satisfaction than this," he said heartily. "But you'd better tell us all about it, Mrs. Byfield, and about recent events."
"Especially the recent events of which I seem to have been left in utter ignorance, family solicitor though I am!" muttered Semmerby. "You should have trusted me, my good lady!"
"I didn't know what to do. I hoped the past would never be raked up," replied Mrs. Byfield. "But I'll tell you everything. As I said just now, I had a little money—eight or nine hundred pounds—when I was twenty-one. I got to know Cradock Melsome. He persuaded me to marry him.
"We hadn't been married a week before I knew what I'd married—a thoroughly worthless, idle scoundrel! And he'd got my money! I hadn't been married six months before the other woman found us out—or found me out, for he was always away at race meetings, leaving me to support myself.
"She told me what Mr. Winslow has told you of just now. I asked her what she was going to do, and she said that all she wanted was to go back to her village and be left alone. She went, and I went, too—to the other end of the world! I never wanted to see or hear of Cradock Melsome again, I assure you.
"I just went off, there and then, and very soon afterwards I got a post as stewardess in a New Zealand steamer. When I got to Wellington, I stopped there for some years. Then I came back to Europe, again as a stewardess, and I was some little time at Marseilles, in one of the hotels there, and after that I was manageress of an English tea-room at Nice.
"There I met Martin Byfield. He wanted to marry me, and I told him all that I've told you. Well, we were married, and there's no doubt about that, Mr. Semmerby!"
"I'm unfeignedly glad to hear it!" exclaimed the old solicitor. "But I'm absolutely puzzled why you never told me of all this."
"I didn't want to tell anybody," said Mrs. Byfield. "I hated to think of the past, and I didn't want my son to know—I hoped he never would know. I believed it was all dead, and buried. I fancied I should never see or hear of Cradock Melsome again."
"But you have!" observed Linthwaite. "And that's what I want to know about. What are the recent events, now?"
"They began two years ago," replied Mrs. Byfield, "Not very long after my husband died, I went over to Brighton one day, and when I was leaving, I saw a man in the station there whom I thought I'd seen before, though I couldn't think where.
"When I'd got in the train, I remembered—he was Charles Melsome, Cradock's brother. It turned me faint and sick to think of. And when I got out at Selchester he came up to me. What was I to do? He made me meet him next day. He threatened to let everything out.
"So I began to give him money, and I've been giving him money ever since—seven or eight hundred pounds a year. So that he could keep an eye on me, he came and lived in the town and called himself Mesham. That's the truth about him—as bad if not worse than his brother he is!"
"About the brother, now?" asked Semmerby. "You say you saw him last week?"
"When I met Mr. Linthwaite—whom I'd known as Mr. Herbert, when I was married, or believed myself married, to Cradock—last Tuesday," answered Mrs. Byfield, "I made up my mind I'd tell him all about this. But Mesham, as we call him, came along. He and Mr. Linthwaite went off together. And it was the night after that, when Fanshawe was out, that Mesham brought Cradock to the house, by the garden gate. They caught me alone—nobody knew they were there. And there they had me trapped! What was more, they came again the next night, in the same way.
"Cradock swore that the marriage to the girl at Mingham Parva was not a proper one—he'd all sorts of explanations about it—and they were both so certain that I didn't know what to do, or think. They threatened me with exposure if I didn't"
"If you didn't buy their silence!" interrupted Semmerby sardonically, "Now we're getting at it. In short, Mrs. Byfield, you consented to be blackmailed, eh?"
"What was I to do?" exclaimed Mrs. Byfield. "They both swore that I was legally married to Cradock! And I so dreaded what they could do that I promised to buy their silence. I dare say"
"To what extent were you going?" demanded Semmerby.
"I promised to give them a certain sum of money—to-day," admitted Mrs. Byfield. "Of course, it would have been my money—not Fanshawe's, But"
"That's why Mesham looked so sold when he saw Mrs. Byfield leave for London yesterday morning!" exclaimed Semmerby, with a glance at Linthwaite. "Well, they haven't got the money. But now, there's this Letwige's affair, Mrs. Byfield."
But before he could say more the door opened, and a waiter showed in a quiet and demure-looking person who carried in his right hand, evidently with great care, a brown leather dispatch-case.