Tristram of Blent | Page 3

his medical attendant; after lying in this state for twenty-four hours he revived and lived nearly a week longer. A second letter, apprising Mrs F. of this fact, and announcing the correct date of his death as June 12th, reached her at Baden on the 28th. By this time she was married, but the validity of her new union (solemnized on the 23rd) did not appear to be affected. Nothing more was done, and the boy was born, as I have stated, early in July. Only after this event, which naturally engrossed the parents' attention, did the mistake into which they had fallen come to be discovered. As a matter of form, and to avoid doubts in the future, Captain F. wrote for the official certificate of Sir R.'s death. When it came, it came as a thunderbolt. Sir R. had been residing in a small Russian town near the frontier; he was interested, I understood, in some business there. The servant to whom I have referred was an uneducated man and could not write; he had picked up a little French but spoke no Russian. Wishing to inform Mrs F. of what had occurred, he had recourse to a professional letter-writer, who perhaps knew as little French, or almost as little, as himself, and was entirely ignorant of English. The servant gave the dates I have set down--June 6th in the first letter, the 12th in the second. The letter-writer put them down; and Mrs F. read and immediately accepted them. It did not cross her mind or Captain F.'s that the dates used were the ordinary Russian dates--were in fact 'Old Style,' and consequently twelve days behind the reckoning of Germany or of England. They might have been put on inquiry by the long interval between the date of the death as it was given and the receipt of the news; in their excitement they paid no heed to it, and it did not occur either to Madame de Kries or to myself to raise the question. Indeed who thinks of the 'Old Style' at this period of the world's history? Besides, I did not know at that time, and I do not think that Madame de Kries did, where the first letter came from; Mrs F. said nothing about it. But when the certificate arrived--about the middle of July, as I understood--the mistake was clear; for a note in the official's hand translated the dates into New Style for the benefit of the foreigners to whom he was supplying the document. Sir R. E., first reported dead on June 6th Old Style, otherwise June 18th New Style, had actually died on the 12th Old Style, or 24th New Style.
I have always thought this one of the most perverse little incidents which I have met with in the course of my life, and I think it such still, when I consider how easily it might have done no harm, and how serious, and indeed irreparable, its actual consequences were. The mistake as to the date of death was the first source of confusion, since it caused Mrs F.'s wedding to take place while her husband, Sir R., had still a day to live. But this error would not in itself have proved fatal, since there would still have been time to repeat the ceremony and make a valid marriage of it before the birth of the child. Here the misapprehension about the Old Style came in. Led to believe that, although Sir R. lived six days longer than was originally reported, yet none the less he died on June 12th, the F.'s did not have the ceremony repeated. But he died, in fact, on the 24th as his wife reckoned time, and her wedding to Captain F. on the 23rd was an idle and useless form. When the discovery was made, the boy was born--and born out of lawful wedlock.
What did they do then? I was pardonably interested in the matter, and inquired of Madame de Kries. She was reticent, but I extracted from her the information that they were hurriedly married again. One could laugh if the matter had not been so terribly serious to them and to their boy. For by now those events had actually happened, and Mrs F. was not indeed in possession of but next in succession to a considerable estate and an ancient title. Marrying again could not mend the matter. What else they did to mend or try to mend it, Madame de Kries professed not to know. I myself do not know either. There is only one thing to say. They could not alter the date of the death; they could not alter the date of the wedding; perhaps it would seem rather more possible to alter the date of