"When I wrote you my long letter I was about to be married and was to call to see you on our way to Boston; am I not right?" I nodded.
"Well, in a week Rita received a letter from her sister saying she was not well, and suggesting that it would be better we should be married in Tennessee. This letter altered our plans. A few days later a dispatch came from Wilton, telling us, that poor Minnie had died suddenly, she and her baby at the same time. Mrs. Allen was a great stickler for what she called the proprieties of life, and though she had not in her heart a spark of affection for her nieces, she insisted our marriage should be postponed for at least three months.
Rita had been in her care since childhood; it is true the care was of no gentle kind, but she was grateful and did not wish to displease her Aunt. I went to Chicago to get my affairs into shape. Before the time I was to have returned, my darling wrote me that her shrewd worldly-wise Aunt had become suddenly alarmed by the shape political matters were rapidly taking; had determined to convert all she owned into money and to go to her relatives in England for the remainder of her days. The dear girl begged me to come to her as soon as possible.
Her wish was my law. I started the next day; for I had acquired the habit of being always ready for a change of base.
Reaching ---- I found the shrewish old woman up to her eyes in affairs. I lent her all the a.s.sistance possible, and in one month she was ready for her departure. With her and another for witnesses, Rita and I were made one. She dowered her niece with five thousand dollars, kissing her most decorously on the forehead. In a half hour after the ceremony she started north, and we west. Her last words were, "Adieu!
Don"t write to me. If I ever care to hear from you I will write." She thus pa.s.sed out of our lives and we know not whether she be alive or dead.
My bride and I went to Memphis and thence to St. Louis. We were absolutely happy. The world was bright and rosy to us both. My wife was, as fully as I, imbued with the belief that we were mated, dovetailed together; were as thoroughly one as Adam or Shiva were one, before Eve or Parvati were taken from them.
Possessed as we were of perfect health, physically we might have been models to an artist for robust, untainted manhood and womanhood. Not a cloud flecked our sky--not a shadow, we thought, could possibly lurk beneath the horizon. At St. Louis, the day after our arrival, we had been out for a walk and on returning I went to the hotel reading room, while Rita gaily tripped up stairs toward our room, kissing her hand to me from the upper landing. I picked up a paper, chance-dropped by some traveller, published in the town near my home; the same which Jim had brought me with the announcement of Belle"s marriage. Almost the first thing I saw was an editorial statement that "the marriage between the beautiful Mrs. Belle ---- and the Marquis of ---- in Rome had been positively and permanently abandoned." My eyes were riveted to the horrible column. It continued: "The proud uncrowned Queen of ---- discovered before it was too late, the t.i.tled groom desired the gems and gold in the bride"s strong box, far more than the jewels and pure metal so effulgently shining in her form and rich in her character, etc., etc." I was stunned--my blood stood still in my heart. I leaned over upon a table and was blind from intense agony. I thought of my own misery, but Great G.o.d! what would become of my poor wife! My limbs seemed powerless; I did not move until a light hand rested upon my head.
My wife had come down to find me. "Oh, darling, what is it, what is it?" I took her hand and slowly staggered to our room. I knelt at her feet. I prayed her to forgive me. I hid my face in her lap and sobbed as a broken hearted child. She smoothed my hair and for some minutes with sweetest of all sympathy let my grief flow. Then she lifted my head.
"Tell me what it is, my husband."
I looked into her dear pale face and cried, "I cannot--I cannot break your heart, my poor wife."
"Break my heart, darling! It can never break while it has yours to dwell in."
"But," I gasped, "we must part."
"Part! part! Oh, G.o.d! Jack! what is it you say? part! no, no! Never, never!" She was as colorless as the lace about her neck. I then told her all.
When I had finished, she laid her arm around my neck, drew my cheek to hers, and said in a firm, brave voice, "No, Jack, my darling, we will not part. I am your wife, wedded in Heaven. G.o.d was witness to our betrothal under the open sky. G.o.d was sponsor to our marriage. We are man and wife and no man or woman can ever separate us. I am your Eve darling and with you would live in Eden, but if driven out, I will be by your side and wherever we go, there will be my paradise. You have not offended the law. You thought yourself free and no one can blame you."
I pressed her to my heart and cried, "My Rita, my n.o.ble Rita!"
"No, no! Jack, I am your Rita, but not your n.o.ble Rita. I am simply a woman; I am your wife and do no more or no less than any loving woman should do."
We resolved to go to Chicago, to live in seclusion while I should do all I could to increase my fortune, and then we would go off to some far off land, where there could be no possibility of having scandal"s finger pointed at us. I then wrote you to forget me.
I again became Jack Felden, and my wife learned to like my olive hue and my dark hair better than my natural complexion. Chicago became our home. I courted fortune on change. For a while I was but indifferently successful. One year on almost the last day of August, Jim hurriedly entered my office saying:
"Mars Jack, your time is come. My ole ankles tells me thar will be a killing frost dis night; the corn will be cotched. I knows what I tells you. I run all way down town to tell you. Go out now, dis very minit, an" buy all de corn you can carry; put your las" dollar up and make a fortune. You"ll win, Mars Jack; if you fails, you kin sell me for a ole grinnin possum."
The honest face of my old friend was ashy from excitement. With one word--"Jim I"ll do it," I went on the board and before night nearly every dollar I owned on earth was up in margins on corn. That night there was a frost, corn went up several cents; this gave me additional margins, and I risked all. One month later I had cleared a handsome fortune.
The next year Rita and I went abroad to remain for two years. A boy was born to us in Egypt. We wanted Jim and Dinah to see him. For though they were our servants, we loved them as our best friends. I knew how Dinah would yearn to hold little Jack on her bosom; to live over in her deep loving fancy the days when her baby John drew his life from her breast. She had prayed that Miss Rita would let her nuss Mars John"s Baby. She never saw him. In London he was exhaled as a dew drop. It was a sad blow; but my wife did not grieve as I feared she would.
She said "it is best Jack. He would have been nameless in the eyes of the law. We will live for each other." It would have been better had she shed more tears; for there are times when her very fort.i.tude alarms me.
We returned to Chicago. Rita was quietly happy in her little secluded home. I am always happy, when her face is unclouded.
My disguise as Jack Felden precludes any ambition either social or otherwise. Our little family lives for each other, and is perfectly satisfied to know only a few necessary acquaintances. We go to theatres and concerts and keep ourselves abreast of progress and of life. We are school teachers, Jim being our pupil. His life is inwoven with ours. We are both fond of books. People we often meet at places of amus.e.m.e.nt and on our drives look at us inquiringly, and occasionally some have tried to break into our seclusion. We have met the kindly advances courteously, but continue to live within ourselves. Our city being made up of people new to each other, makes this easy.
Once in New York at the opera I saw Belle; she was the admired occupant of a box. Her opera gla.s.s was bent upon us several times. I think she recognized her acquaintance of the New Orleans ball-room.
She was still queenly, cold, and I could see selfishness had laid its mark upon more than one of her perfectly modeled features. She was still the proud rich widow.
Rita looked at her through her gla.s.s, and said to me "Jack dear, look at that magnificent blonde; she is perfect in form, and her features are faultless, but she could never be a follower of the Buddha; she could tread the life out of living beings, and care not if she only did not soil her skirts." With that she turned so as not to see her again. I kept my counsels. Belle was not again referred to.
Last spring Rita lost a little girl at its birth; she did not recuperate. The Doctor advised a tent life for the summer. Dinah was not well enough to accompany us. If Rita be not fully recovered by the middle of autumn, we will go to the upper Nile. I have an idea its climate must prove beneficial to her.
As I said, we keep to ourselves; at first, feeling it necessary because we were over a social volcano, but lately from choice. I cannot help thinking that Belle will some day grow weary of her widowed life and will make me free; she can get a decree of divorce, I cannot. I would not commit a fraud to win one, and she would not permit me to obtain it otherwise. Now Jamison, you know why I have so long neglected you."
"Yes, Jack, I not only know, but fully appreciate your feelings, and though I try to be a religious man, I cannot blame you for your course." With that he pressed my hand in warm and grateful affection.
Felden seemed to have told all he wished to tell at that time. That there was something still untold, I suspected.
CHAPTER VI.
That night, never to be forgotten by me, we were kept entirely within doors, by a deluging rain. The winds shrieked through the groaning trees. The thunder rolled in constant and awe inspiring reverberations. The lightning kept the tent in a continuous blaze.
Thoroughly protected, we were silenced by the awful voice of the tempest. A storm is never so grand as to the occupants of a tent in a wild forest, one seems then so close to Him who rides the winds and speaks in the roar of the thunder.
Just as nature seemed wearied of the intense exertion, the old mastiff sprang up with a growl and rushed toward the tightly closed tent door.
The curtain was drawn aside, when he sprang out into the night, and was soon in pursuit of some wild animal, evidently of considerable size, for we heard its flying tread in the darkness. When the storm abated, Jim reported that a fine mess of ba.s.s we had caught just before dark had been stolen. Mrs. Felden expressed regret, for several of the fish had been taken by her. Jack laughingly offered to go down to the Rock at day break, and bring back a mess in time for breakfast at seven.
When I awoke, the next morning the sun was quite high in the heavens.
Mrs. Felden and Jim were already out, and evinced some impatience, because Jack had not returned with the promised breakfast. When seven o"clock came, the wife sent the old man to call her husband home, fish or no fish.
"Tell him," said she, "that the storm has made us ravenous."
When Jim also failed to return in due time, Mrs. Felden became alarmed and asked me to follow him. I set out, and although the ground was sopping wet, she joined me, in spite of my gentle remonstrances. We soon met Jim hurrying towards us. His face was of an ashen hue.
"Where is Jack, Jim--Oh where is my husband?" shrieked the mistress, as she rushed past the negro toward the water.
The man caught her arm, "Stop Miss Rita, stop Miss Rita, fer de Lord sake stop. I"ll tell you, Miss Rita, please stop."
She tried to tear herself from his grasp. "Oh my G.o.d, he"s dead--my husband is dead. Tell me--Jim, where is my husband?"
The negro forced her down on a boulder, and catching her hand covered it with tears and kisses. "Miss Rita, my dear Misses, be good an" I"ll tell you all." She attempted in vain to arise, for a powerful arm held her firmly, but gently back.
I sat by her side, and lay my hand soothingly on her shoulder, saying--"Tell her, Jim, she is a brave woman and can bear the Lord"s will. Tell her all."
The negro"s face showed only too plainly that her worst fears were true. "Miss Rita--I"ll tell you all. Be a good chile Miss Rita; jess be Mars Jack"s wife, Miss Rita, an" I"ll keep nothin" back."
"I will Jim--tell me the worst;" she uttered between choking sobs.
In a voice of intense grief and solemnity, Jim then said, "Be a good chile, Miss Rita; be de wife of de grandes" man what ever lived; Jim Madison never tole his marster an" mistis a lie. G.o.d is good, Miss Rita; his ways is unscrubable; he knows whats bes", for his chilluns.
He wanted Mars Jack hisself; he done took him to his side. Mars Jack"s drownded."
A wild shriek rang through the woods--a shriek of agony which caused the blood to run cold in my veins. The bereaved woman stared into vacancy, as though seeking her husband"s form. She arose from her seat almost rigid, and without a word, fell in a dead swoon at our feet. So still did she lie and so long, that I feared she had pa.s.sed away.