"Dear old Jamison:I know you thought and think me a scape grace, but when you read what I shall write, you will forgive me as a simple madcap. To get you into a proper state of mind, I will at once proceed a tale to unfold.The day of my departure from Cincinnati, I went to the Burnett to discuss a business venture with a guest of the house. He was in the dining-room at 5 o'clock dinner. I sat by his side discussing our business, when I was startled by the tones of a voice near by. I sought it. There just opposite to me the "brown shawl" was being seated. An elderly lady accompanied her.My vis-a-vis was a young girl, not over eighteen, but in every respect the woman I met in '50, at the flower-show in Regent's Park. There was one difference it is true—in her coiffure; as I took it, the result of change of fashion. So vividly was the photograph of years ago impressed on my memory, and so exactly was it copied, that the incongruity of time and added years never crossed my brain. I was dazed by the sudden apparition of my dream. No thought entered my mind that it was contrary to the laws of nature, that a woman of 18 in '50 was still only 18 now; nor did the idea occur to me that I was laboring under an hallucination, or was the victim of mistaken identity. The woman I had worshipped for long years was there before me, in every feature the same as memory pictured her. She was no older, and was altered only as change of fashion had altered her. I did not reason on the subject.I overheard that the two ladies were on their way to Boston; and were to leave on the 7:30 train, going East. They examined a time table, and speculated as to their stops for meals before reaching their destination. The elder was addressed as "Auntie," the younger one as "Rita."In an hour I was at the station with my luggage. I saw them enter the cars, and knew whenever they left it at eating stations. At Boston I made my cab driver follow their carriage and took the number of the dwelling and the name of the street. The next day I watched the house. At noon Rita with a lady, both in calling costume took a carriage at the door, and Rita, for so I already called her in my thoughts threw a kiss to a child who had followed them from the house.I determined this was her home, and felt no longer any necessity for constant watching. Towards sundown I was walking in the Common, where she and I met face to face. She looked at me, but as one to her an indifferent stranger. A girl, probably of five years was her companion. While the latter sailed a toy boat on the pond, the young lady sat on a seat not far away.The little girl dropped her hat in the water, and called out, "Oh, Aunt Rita! I've lost my hat." They tried to reach it with her parasol. I ran to a man raking grass, took his rake and rescued the hat. When I put it on the child's head, the aunt thanked me, with a smile that was a ray of sunshine. Her voice, modulated to express thanks, was simply music.Resolved to take advantage of any and every opportunity to make her acquaintance, I took off my hat saying, "Pardon me, but we have met before. It was in London, in 1850."She replied, with a smile, "Your memory must be wonderful, for at that time, I was—let me see—" and she counted the years on her fingers, "I was then nine years old, and very small for my age." I was dumbfounded, for as yet I had not thought of the anachronism I had been guilty of. I said, "it is strange"—my voice sounded hollow to myself—"but a young lady, your very image, I met a dozen times, and what is stranger still, she wore the self same brown shawl which covered your shoulders at the Burnett house, a few days since." She did not notice my allusion to the Burnett house but burst out in a hearty laugh and clapped her hands so loudly, that the little girl ran to her."I see it all," she cried; "Minnie, my sister, was in London that year, and wore that shawl. Her picture was taken in it about the same time, and when I grew up I was so wonderfully like her, that she gave it to me; when I fix my hair as hers was, and put on that wrap, every one declares the picture to be the very image of myself."I had broken the ice rather unconventionally, and was determined not to recede. I said "But she was with her father and a little boy." I felt I was treading on thin ice, but if it were not her father, I would manage in some way to get out of my mistake."Yes!" she replied. "Yes! my poor dear father and dear little Ralph were with her. I was at school at home. Poor papa—poor Ralph." Her eyes became suffused. "Papa and Minnie went abroad for brother Ralph's health. Poor boy, he did not live to get home, and papa died the next year."It was not right, but I could not resist it. I knew that grief admits a friend more readily than gaiety, so I said: "Yes! Ralph looked very frail, but your father was the picture of health. I was abroad after that for several years and lost sight of them."She paused a while, and then continued, "dear papa was never sick, but his troubles broke his heart and killed him. You know it was a terrible thing to be cheated of all he possessed by the man he thought his best friend."I saw she had an idea, I had known her father and of his affairs. I was villain enough not to undeceive her. What is more, I felt I had a right to be free with this girl. I had worshipped her sister for years, and in every land. She and her sister were now become as one, and that one was designed by nature for me.The child ran up and pulled her hand. "Lets go home, aunt Rita, I am hungry."She arose, and nodding me a polite good evening, said:"I suppose you will come to see Minnie. Her house is No. ——. My aunt and I are visiting her."I promised to do so, and passed a sleepless night, racking my brain to discover some way of getting into No. —— without taking advantage of this sweet girl's unconventional innocence. Could I tell a lie? Would it be a lie to excuse myself on the plea of having a slight acquaintance with the dead father? I lived a lie; was indeed a living lie, but I had as yet to my recollection never uttered a direct one.On the next day I called, asking for the ladies. I sent in a card with an assumed name and wrote under it, "An acquaintance of years ago." Rita and Mrs. Wilton, her sister, came in together. I stood for several minutes speechless. There were the two sisters. Apparently there was ten years difference in their ages, and the disparity was patent. Yet I looked from one to the other, and for a while was hardly able to determine that it was the elder I had previously met. I hid my confusion. They seemed never to question my having been a friend of their father. Neither evinced the slightest emotion when our eyes met. I had while abroad, the entre of many noble houses. I used this fact as a sort of credential and succeeded so well that Mr. Wilton called at my hotel and invited me to dine with his family.The visit was repeated; and I was well received. I honored the wife—but loved the young sister. It seemed to me it was she I had been carrying all of these years in my heart; and I did not stop to think what all this might lead to. When I changed my skin in India I became the man I pretended to be. I was the homeless Jack Felden. I was madly infatuated, and what may seem strange, while I trembled when I looked at or touched the younger sister, I felt not a single tremor, when the elder walked to a concert at night with her hand on my arm; not an emotion, when she looked me in the face. I loved her years ago, I loved her sister now because she and her sister had become one, and that one was the younger.I watched Rita and could not find that I aroused one single feeling of reciprocation in her breast. I grew mad at the thought, and at night cried aloud in agony. Was it true—could it be true, that after all, I was nothing to this woman who, I believed, was made for me?I spoke one day of the episode at the flower show, intimating nothing which could connect them with it. Minnie told how she, too, once had fallen in love the same way; suddenly she started and fixed her eyes on my black hair and olive hue. The look seemed to recall her; she had no suspicion.I pondered on the thing. Years ago my glance sent the blood crimson to her brow. The sister now affected me as she had formerly done, but I seemed to be nothing to her. I spent sleepless nights trying to account for this. I reached the conclusion at last that love—passionate love, was a physical as well as a spiritual emotion; that I was wearing a mask covering my true self, and to win Rita I must unmask.I have told you I could remove and replace my scar in a day, but to change the color of my hair or complexion requires from four to six months. I learned that Rita, with her aunt, whom I did not meet, would return to their home in Tennessee within a month, and she would then be a village fixture for perhaps a year. I grew madly jealous lest some one should love and win her before I could appear properly before her.I swore to have her, and when won, I felt sure she would never change, but would wait and wait until she could be mine. I bade the sisters goodbye with a heavy heart—all the heavier, because on their part leave-taking was only kindly.I hurried to Cincinnati; avoided places where I could meet you; gathered together my guns and fishing-tackle, my cosmetics and wardrobe sufficient for several months absence; arranged my bank account and went to Chicago, where I thought the Ethiopian might change his skin without observation. Jim being able to read my writing when in plain characters, was directed to pack up all my valuables and to hold himself in readiness to come to me at once on receipt of a letter.He and his wife finally joined me. I sent him to Tennessee to learn the lay of the land in the town in which Rita's aunt resided. To escape any difficulties a Northern negro might encounter in a small Southern town, he went as a boat hand on a steamer running from St. Louis; managed to get sick when —— was reached, and was necessarily put ashore. In a month he returned full of the information I desired.I learned that the father of the two sisters, Mr. Dixon, had been a wealthy merchant in one of the large southern cities. He was an Englishman by birth and had lost his wife, a high-born Spanish lady, when Rita was a small child. They had no relations in America, except the aunt, under whose care the youngest daughter was living and upon whom she was dependent. When the family was in England for Ralph's health in '50, the partner of Mr. Dixon contrived to raise a very large sum of money and decamped. Mr. Dixon reached home to find himself an absolute pauper. The blow prostrated him, and in a few months he was laid beside his wife. Rita had only a village education, but was a great reader and a good musician. Her aunt, Mrs. Allen, had been governess in a nobleman's house in England, was literary and decidedly uppish and withal intensely avaricious.Mr. Wilton was the Boston correspondent of the ruined firm, and in the course of settling with it met and won Minnie. Rita's aunt, or rather, aunt-in-law, the widow of her father's only brother, took charge of her and made her home an unhappy one, not by direct unkindness, but by her querulous, carping and sarcastic disposition and manner. She would long since have gone to her sister but for a dislike of Wilton, who, though most kind to his wife, was a selfish man, and had given his young sister-in-law some great offense for which the Spanish blood, so hot in her veins, forbade forgiveness.I do not remember ever to have told you that Jim Madison, the obedient servant and devoted slave of his once master, is a man of great native intellect. When a boy, I taught him to read a little and in Cincinnati spent much time trying to educate him. He was wonderfully apt and occasionally with strangers uses good English, but with me and my intimates prefers to be the negro servant and to use plantation language. He is intensely loving, absolutely honest, and at times startles me by an almost savage dignity inherited through a short line from his African forefathers. Reared among a thousand negroes, for Clifton and Brandon people mingled almost as if of one plantation—jolly and light in his heart, he courted popularity among his kind and became one of the most astute diplomats. I love him as my servant and honor him as a true and honest man; respect, and if he were not my friend, would almost fear him as a shrewd, self poised, ever alert diplomatist. I had known his qualities before, yet the thoroughness of his information brought me from —— amazed me. He managed to get a job of sawing a load of fire-wood and packing it in the aunt's yard, and from that he became domiciled in a room over the kitchen. With his open but shrewd honesty, he became almost a confident of Miss Rita.You who have never lived in the South cannot understand how closely drawn together are kind masters and mistresses and humble but faithful servants.The cunning Hindoo who gave me my raven locks and olive complexion, gave me also ingredients to restore my original appearance more rapidly than nature, unassisted, would do, and at the same time, cosmetics, which would enable me to conceal the change while going on. The effects of the cosmetics were entirely temporary, and easily removable.When Jim returned, I was ready to reassume my skin. When emerging from my bath one morning, I was no longer Jack Felden, but John —— of Clifton, ——. Jim and Dinah shed tears of joy, crying together "Bress de Lord! oh bress de Lord—its Mars John—its hisself shuah"; and they hugged me again and again.Dinah sat down in a rocking chair and said, "Come to Mammy, honey; jes let Mammy nuss her baby boy one more time, and I'se ready to go to glory."I lay my head on the loving creature's lap, while she combed out my hair and tried to curl it around her fingers. The curls of my youth, however, were gone forever.When I looked into the glass, and saw my changed appearance, a sudden revulsion of feeling came over me. I was John ——: I was the unhappy husband of my cold cousin. A gulf arose between Rita and myself. How dare I think of winning the love of that pure girl! I, who was bound by the law of man to another, even though my reason and my heart told me, I was free. So thoroughly had I identified myself with the character of Jack Felden, while wearing his hair and complexion, that the recollection of my real name and position was blurred. It is true, my unfortunate marriage was never entirely forgotten, but I felt myself a new man, with new lights and different possibilities. The husband of Belle had become an unreal shadow—the figment of a disordered imagination. The life I had been living for years began in the Bengalee village, when the cunning Hindoo made me a stranger to my servant—all before that was a dream. Now having laid aside my mask, I was the dead man come back to life, with all his memories and his hated ties.I took long walks at night out into the open country. I fought the demon of memory; I fought the commands of conscience. But conscience would not down. The blood spot would not out. Despair filled me.Aided by my temporary cosmetics, I again became Jack Felden, but the change was only partial. My glass told me I was he, my conscience whispered, I was John ——. Mine was a dual being. The hopes of the masquerader were depressed by the fears of the real man. I decided to send Jim to Clifton to learn something of Belle, resolved if she were still clinging to her pride, to speculate boldly—to win a fortune and give it to Rita as a restitution coming from her father's swindler.You know something of my success in Cincinnati. Jim had been my lucky stone; his rheumatic limbs were my barometer, telling me what the season would be from week to week, and though I did not believe in it, I had speculated on what his joints foretold and was now the possessor of a fair competency—I would risk my all, court fortune's smile to make or break. If fortune should favor me, all would be Rita's; I would avoid her forever; if the fickle jade failed me, Jim and I could gain a livelihood in new endeavors.While shedding my skin, I had made several small successful ventures in corn and wheat. Jim and I put our heads together (or rather, I put my head to his shins) and we arrived at conclusions, which should lead to wealth, or to poverty. I put aside a couple of thousands for Jim and Dinah, staking all the rest of my fortune in margins. I won from the first. I pushed my luck with reckless daring, turning my profits into margins and new ventures. At the end of two weeks, my means were doubled.I was eating my dinner—one of the best Dinah ever prepared—when Akbor and Queen watching me close by my chair, suddenly sprang up, and rushed to the door whining and uttering low barks. Jim entered, to be overthrown by the delighted animals. Gathering himself up quickly, he held out his hand to me, an unusual familiarity, for Jim is my friend, yet my slavish servant, and rarely loses the demeanor of the servant."Bress de Lord, Mars Jack; shout glory hallelujer Dineh, you black niggar! We'se free! and created equal as shuah as Tom Jeffersom printed de declaratium!"I made him sit down and tell his story. He told me all he thought of interest regarding the dear home of my childhood.I tried to get him to the point on which I most desired information, but he could not be induced to alter the thread of his narration in the least detail. Finally I learned that Belle, who had gone abroad twelve months before, was to be married in a month to an Italian Lord."Jess think of it Dineh—git it through yo' wool, ole gal.—over dah dey calls men lords. I don't wonnah dat Sodum and Gomorrah was guv up to fire and brimstone. I specks dar was lords in dem days. The reel Lord will make Miss Belle a piller of salt—shuah! stick dat in yo' craw, Dineh—dar is one Lord, and he tells us in de book, dat he am a jellus God."Jim then spread before me a newspaper printed in ——. It announced, as a most important event—"That the beautiful and queenly Mrs. Belle —— whose husband, Mr. John —— had mysteriously disappeared in 185–, supposed to have died of cholera in India, had become a Catholic and was about to be married to the Marquis of —— in Rome. Mrs. —— had with hopeful love for her husband, for all these years refused to credit the report of his death; even now, she was unwilling to act on information she had gained at great expense, from India; information which every one else thought thoroughly reliable. She had therefore applied to the Pope for a dispensation; that as soon as the formalities necessary at the Vatican were completed, she would at once become the Marchionness of ——. The marriage was to occur on the —— day ——, just one month from the day of the publication of this paper."Oh Jamison, old fellow, that was a happy hour for me. I had that day closed very successful deals. I was almost rich and could win and wear Rita. I did not for a moment doubt she would be mine, for I honestly believed her my mate. All impatience to fly to her, I made an arrangement to travel south for a Chicago firm, to be paid out of commission alone. Jim informed me that Rita's aunt sometimes rented her front parlor and a bed-room attached, to traveling men with samples; that it was a source of much mortification to the niece, for the elderly lady was rich and had no children, renting the room out of pure avarice. I resolved to lease it, for it would bring me close to Rita and would arouse her animosity, out of which I would snatch victory.I washed every vestige of Jack Felden from my hair and skin, but put a scar on my cheek, which with a full beard and straight hair, I thought would insure me against all recognition, should chance bring me in contact with some one I had known in early manhood. On reaching ——, leaving my luggage and sample boxes at the wharf, I went at once to the home of the aunt; secured the rooms and agreed to pay a large price for my breakfast and supper in the house. Thus the best of treatment was secured, for the avaricious old lady would try to keep me as long as possible.My first meal in the house, was supper. When Rita came to the table, she scarcely deigned to notice me. She disliked me for taking the parlor.Mrs. Allen, the aunt, was a screw, but she was an epicure. Her old cook was an artist. Like all genuine gourmets, the old lady was a table talker, and a good one. I resolved to return Miss Rita's disdain, by ignoring her presence, and if possible to arouse her interest in me, against her will.When the aunt served me with tea, she said:"Mr. Felden, there is a cup which I am sure you cannot equal in Chicago. New made people can soon become good judges of coffee, but a connoisseur in tea must have blue blood in his veins.""I do not boast a long line of ancestry," I rejoined, "but my palate must be the heritage of good blood, for I enjoy the Chinese drink greatly, and am very particular as to the brand. There is only one country in the world where good tea is almost universal. A bad cup in Russia, I found the exception.""Ah," she said, "but it is in England, that it is always above the average.""Yes," I acknowledged, "as a food, not as a beverage. English tea is good to eat—that is to mix with, and wash down your muffins. In Russia tea is a drink, and is even jealous of a thing so coarse as sugar. I learned there to put into my cup only a soupçon of sweet.""You have been in the land of the Czar then, have you?""I spent some time within his dominions," I replied."You have been a traveler, then I suppose. What other countries have you visited? Pardon my seeming impertinence, but I have found it a good beginning to an acquaintance, to learn where each has been. I have myself, wandered considerably, but only in Europe.""I have visited nearly every European land;" I said, for I was determined to please her and at the same time to win the attention of the niece, who so far, had only noticed me by casual glances, "have hunted the tiger in Indian jungles and laved my limbs in holy Ganges among its devotees.""Oh, how charming!" the good lady exclaimed. "I thought I was getting only a liberal lodger and I find I may be entertaining a savant.""To get myself on the best footing, dear Madam," I rejoined, "I will say I have straddled the equator, and have used the Arctic Circle for a trapeze."She clapped her hands, saying, "That's capital, is it not, Rita? What else, and where else, Mr. Traveler?""In Burmah I have ogled beauties with huge cigars piercing the lobes of their ears, and have worshipped Soudanise ladies closely veiled on the upper Nile, awakening from my dream of adoration to find the Yashmac of my divinities covering ebony coloured features.""Go on, dear sir, go on, I am wrapt in profound attention," and the old wizened eyes sparkled with pleasure."I have been in ——," I glanced at Rita, she was listening with intense interest; I grew ashamed of the game and paused. But knowing how a woman's nature clothes the mysterious man in brightest garments, and is ready to find the prince in beggar's raiment, I resolved to show her a despised drummer, who had been in all lands, and even an actor in wild and dangerous adventures."I have crossed the dark teak forests of Siam, where jungle fever kills its victims in a single day, and escaped its venom by swallowing quinine by the handful and by sleeping in the houdah on my elephant's back. A single night on the ground would have been death."Rita changed her seat to become my vis-a-vis and from then never removed her eyes from my face.I continued: "In Cambodia I lived a week in a grand palace, surrounded by huge temples of fine architectural beauty; temples and palaces covering a mile square; and excepting my servants, I was the only tenant of a magnificent lost city. Trees were rooting on the friezes of noble porticos and splitting their marble members asunder."I was once caged in a small cave near old Golconda, and my guard of honor was a huge tiger, who lay across the entrance to the den, and strove to tear down the barricade I had erected to keep him out. His fierce growls as he wildly scratched against the granite wall, curdled the blood in my veins and his breath came hot upon my face, the winding crevices in the barricade permitting this, while not allowing me to shoot through them. I sat rifle in hand, expecting every minute that my protection would give way, and then barely hoping that I might send a bullet into the monster's brain. Finally the wall toppled—he crouched for the fatal spring, when a shell from my faithful gun pierced his heart, and I sank in a swoon from long excitement, and physical exhaustion."A sweet voice of intense emotion came across the table."And—and—please tell me how long did you lie in the swoon?"Ah, how I did long to press to my bosom that dear, sympathetic heart!I replied, "I do not know, but when I came to, I felt I was dying from thirst. I crept through the opening and with the tiger's blood not yet cold, moistened my parching tongue. I lapped it in a sort of revenge.""That was grand! Oh, why am I not a man?" she exclaimed.I leaned towards her, my heart spoke in tones she did not mistake. "Thank God! thank God! you are not."She started, her eyes met mine, every drop of blood seemed to leave her cheek, she was so pale; our eyes looked into our eyes. Her face crimsoned, and she rushed out of the room.Mrs. Allen apolegetically—"do not mind that child, Mr. Felden, she's an idiot," and then, her face became nearly malignant, "Yes, she's an idiot, a plague and a nuisance."How I hated her! How I gloated over the idea, that I would take the plague from her, resolved never to ask her consent. For several days the young lady's manner was constrained but not haughty. I was differential but reserved. Indeed I felt a sort of timidity when she was present. I avoided every appearance of throwing myself into her company.I spent some time in the business quarter of town and soon secured some capital orders for my employers. This gave me real pleasure. You, old Jamison, who are so true to your firm, understand this feeling. I made excursions to other towns where I was somewhat successful.The fourth Sunday was a glorious sunny day, just the one for a long ramble in the country.At breakfast I asked Rita to join me in a constitutional. The aunt spoke up, "Of course she will, I would go myself, but my lame foot forbids it."I proposed going to the hotel to get a lunch."No! No!" the old lady said. "No! I will put you up a nice basket. In a few days you will take me out for a long promenade a voiture." I consented by a nod.With basket in hand, we left the house early. My companion wore a charming but plain walking habit; a boy's straw hat sat jauntily on her head. I was sure I had never seen anything half so beautiful, as was this dark, yet fair young girl. Rita was a glorious walker. Hers was not the gliding swimming motion which in America and especially in the South, has been regarded as the ne plus ultra of female grace; but the light springing movement, with which fair Eve tripped over Eden's bloom bespangled glens, when she gathered flowers of every sweet odor and of every native tint to deck her bridal bed; when she tripped over nature's parterres and scarcely brushed away the dews sparkling on their wealth of fragrant bloom.We walked and gaily chatted. She lost all the reserve, which since I became an inmate of her auntie's home had more or less marked her demeanor. She was the young village maiden, who had in artless innocence, at Boston's old frog pond, laughingly talked with the respectful stranger. But when our eyes met, her soul spoke unconsciously through them, telling me that she read my heart and was full of sympathy.We reached a high tree-clad bluff, which overlooked a wide river bend. The sun was warm, but sent upon us no burning rays; rather shimmering his light through the leafy shade. Across the stream, a broad bottom lay, waving in grass and grain, and bright here and there with opening cotton bloom. We sat side by side on a fallen tree, and drank in the beauty of a picture painted from colors worked upon nature's pallette.We descended toward the river bank to a pretty little spring which Rita had before oftentimes visited. We partook of the lunch Mrs. Allen had put up for us, or as Rita said, "for her gold paying lodger, who was a traveled savant."She made the welkin ring with her merry laugh, as she took the wrapping paper from a dusty bottle of claret."Oh! my generous aunty! see, here is genuine Chateau Lafitte! I knew she had it, but I have seen a bottle of it but once on her table, and that was when President Polk dined with us, a good while ago. Poor aunty! You have surely bewitched her, Mr. Felden."The lunch was delicious, and we did it ample justice. "See, Mr. Felden, here is real spring chicken broiled to a "T." Poor aunt; strangely inconsistent aunty. A lavish miser! a generous lover of self! A born epicure."We wandered among little gorges: she was happy, for she was a joyous young girl, set free in nature's haunts. I was happy because by my side was my own—my Heaven given mate, the rib taken from my long ago progenitor, and now given back to me. Grown somewhat tired, we sat upon the grass covered root of an upturned tree. I said something, I remember not what, my companion started; I noticed and adverted to it."Mr. Felden, do you know you frequently startle me. I seem to hear in your voice a tone I have heard before, or have listened to in my dreams." I felt the hour had come."Miss Rita. I owe to you a confession. I am not what I am." I spoke with all the pathos practice among wild and dangerous people had made me master of."Listen to me, Rita, pardon my familiarity: but you will forgive me when I have finished."I rapidly gave her the story of my life, and dwelt upon the meeting with her sister at the flower show, and the hold it took upon me. Again she started, and was about to speak, when with a motion, I stilled her tongue. I spoke of my long wanderings, and then of my seeing her at the Burnett and thinking her the lady of the flower show.I told her of my visit to Boston. The color left her face, and she faltered out—"I knew it—I see it now, you are Mr. Ford," and crimsoned from neck to the roots of her glossy hair."Yes, Rita, I am John ——. I am Jack Ford; and now Jack Felden tells you that he loves you—he worships you and would make you his wife and would be happy,—would make you his wife, his Queen—and would, too, make you happy."I paused and grasped her hand—she did not withdraw it. For a moment she was silent, and then raising her dark confiding eyes to mine, she said in low tones:"Thank God, Jack, I have not dreamed and prayed in vain. I will be your wife—I will cling to you through life, and will rest by your side in death."I drew her unresisting form to my heart, I kissed her lips in one long kiss, and saw, within the gates ajar, the paradise awaiting me.We arose, and hand in hand, silent, but with heart speaking to heart, walked slowly homeward. We scarcely spoke. Speech was unnecessary. There was a silent communion of souls, still, yet eloquent. We were one. We were as Adam, when first created, male and female; our simple reunion was bliss.We are to start together next week for Boston, to be married in the presence of Minnie. Mrs. Allen is glad to be freed from the expense of Rita's outfit. She regrets that "a great traveler, who ought to be wiser, can tie himself down to a chit of a girl." I go to Chicago to-morrow to close up my affairs, and to bring Jim and his wife here. This climate will suit them better than that of Chicago. We will halt in Cincinnati long enough to see you, old fellow, and when married we will go abroad for a year.Congratulate me, dear Jamison, for I am the happiest of men. Yours, never again to perpetuate a folly.Jack."
"Dear old Jamison:
I know you thought and think me a scape grace, but when you read what I shall write, you will forgive me as a simple madcap. To get you into a proper state of mind, I will at once proceed a tale to unfold.
The day of my departure from Cincinnati, I went to the Burnett to discuss a business venture with a guest of the house. He was in the dining-room at 5 o'clock dinner. I sat by his side discussing our business, when I was startled by the tones of a voice near by. I sought it. There just opposite to me the "brown shawl" was being seated. An elderly lady accompanied her.
My vis-a-vis was a young girl, not over eighteen, but in every respect the woman I met in '50, at the flower-show in Regent's Park. There was one difference it is true—in her coiffure; as I took it, the result of change of fashion. So vividly was the photograph of years ago impressed on my memory, and so exactly was it copied, that the incongruity of time and added years never crossed my brain. I was dazed by the sudden apparition of my dream. No thought entered my mind that it was contrary to the laws of nature, that a woman of 18 in '50 was still only 18 now; nor did the idea occur to me that I was laboring under an hallucination, or was the victim of mistaken identity. The woman I had worshipped for long years was there before me, in every feature the same as memory pictured her. She was no older, and was altered only as change of fashion had altered her. I did not reason on the subject.
I overheard that the two ladies were on their way to Boston; and were to leave on the 7:30 train, going East. They examined a time table, and speculated as to their stops for meals before reaching their destination. The elder was addressed as "Auntie," the younger one as "Rita."
In an hour I was at the station with my luggage. I saw them enter the cars, and knew whenever they left it at eating stations. At Boston I made my cab driver follow their carriage and took the number of the dwelling and the name of the street. The next day I watched the house. At noon Rita with a lady, both in calling costume took a carriage at the door, and Rita, for so I already called her in my thoughts threw a kiss to a child who had followed them from the house.
I determined this was her home, and felt no longer any necessity for constant watching. Towards sundown I was walking in the Common, where she and I met face to face. She looked at me, but as one to her an indifferent stranger. A girl, probably of five years was her companion. While the latter sailed a toy boat on the pond, the young lady sat on a seat not far away.
The little girl dropped her hat in the water, and called out, "Oh, Aunt Rita! I've lost my hat." They tried to reach it with her parasol. I ran to a man raking grass, took his rake and rescued the hat. When I put it on the child's head, the aunt thanked me, with a smile that was a ray of sunshine. Her voice, modulated to express thanks, was simply music.
Resolved to take advantage of any and every opportunity to make her acquaintance, I took off my hat saying, "Pardon me, but we have met before. It was in London, in 1850."
She replied, with a smile, "Your memory must be wonderful, for at that time, I was—let me see—" and she counted the years on her fingers, "I was then nine years old, and very small for my age." I was dumbfounded, for as yet I had not thought of the anachronism I had been guilty of. I said, "it is strange"—my voice sounded hollow to myself—"but a young lady, your very image, I met a dozen times, and what is stranger still, she wore the self same brown shawl which covered your shoulders at the Burnett house, a few days since." She did not notice my allusion to the Burnett house but burst out in a hearty laugh and clapped her hands so loudly, that the little girl ran to her.
"I see it all," she cried; "Minnie, my sister, was in London that year, and wore that shawl. Her picture was taken in it about the same time, and when I grew up I was so wonderfully like her, that she gave it to me; when I fix my hair as hers was, and put on that wrap, every one declares the picture to be the very image of myself."
I had broken the ice rather unconventionally, and was determined not to recede. I said "But she was with her father and a little boy." I felt I was treading on thin ice, but if it were not her father, I would manage in some way to get out of my mistake.
"Yes!" she replied. "Yes! my poor dear father and dear little Ralph were with her. I was at school at home. Poor papa—poor Ralph." Her eyes became suffused. "Papa and Minnie went abroad for brother Ralph's health. Poor boy, he did not live to get home, and papa died the next year."
It was not right, but I could not resist it. I knew that grief admits a friend more readily than gaiety, so I said: "Yes! Ralph looked very frail, but your father was the picture of health. I was abroad after that for several years and lost sight of them."
She paused a while, and then continued, "dear papa was never sick, but his troubles broke his heart and killed him. You know it was a terrible thing to be cheated of all he possessed by the man he thought his best friend."
I saw she had an idea, I had known her father and of his affairs. I was villain enough not to undeceive her. What is more, I felt I had a right to be free with this girl. I had worshipped her sister for years, and in every land. She and her sister were now become as one, and that one was designed by nature for me.
The child ran up and pulled her hand. "Lets go home, aunt Rita, I am hungry."
She arose, and nodding me a polite good evening, said:
"I suppose you will come to see Minnie. Her house is No. ——. My aunt and I are visiting her."
I promised to do so, and passed a sleepless night, racking my brain to discover some way of getting into No. —— without taking advantage of this sweet girl's unconventional innocence. Could I tell a lie? Would it be a lie to excuse myself on the plea of having a slight acquaintance with the dead father? I lived a lie; was indeed a living lie, but I had as yet to my recollection never uttered a direct one.
On the next day I called, asking for the ladies. I sent in a card with an assumed name and wrote under it, "An acquaintance of years ago." Rita and Mrs. Wilton, her sister, came in together. I stood for several minutes speechless. There were the two sisters. Apparently there was ten years difference in their ages, and the disparity was patent. Yet I looked from one to the other, and for a while was hardly able to determine that it was the elder I had previously met. I hid my confusion. They seemed never to question my having been a friend of their father. Neither evinced the slightest emotion when our eyes met. I had while abroad, the entre of many noble houses. I used this fact as a sort of credential and succeeded so well that Mr. Wilton called at my hotel and invited me to dine with his family.
The visit was repeated; and I was well received. I honored the wife—but loved the young sister. It seemed to me it was she I had been carrying all of these years in my heart; and I did not stop to think what all this might lead to. When I changed my skin in India I became the man I pretended to be. I was the homeless Jack Felden. I was madly infatuated, and what may seem strange, while I trembled when I looked at or touched the younger sister, I felt not a single tremor, when the elder walked to a concert at night with her hand on my arm; not an emotion, when she looked me in the face. I loved her years ago, I loved her sister now because she and her sister had become one, and that one was the younger.
I watched Rita and could not find that I aroused one single feeling of reciprocation in her breast. I grew mad at the thought, and at night cried aloud in agony. Was it true—could it be true, that after all, I was nothing to this woman who, I believed, was made for me?
I spoke one day of the episode at the flower show, intimating nothing which could connect them with it. Minnie told how she, too, once had fallen in love the same way; suddenly she started and fixed her eyes on my black hair and olive hue. The look seemed to recall her; she had no suspicion.
I pondered on the thing. Years ago my glance sent the blood crimson to her brow. The sister now affected me as she had formerly done, but I seemed to be nothing to her. I spent sleepless nights trying to account for this. I reached the conclusion at last that love—passionate love, was a physical as well as a spiritual emotion; that I was wearing a mask covering my true self, and to win Rita I must unmask.
I have told you I could remove and replace my scar in a day, but to change the color of my hair or complexion requires from four to six months. I learned that Rita, with her aunt, whom I did not meet, would return to their home in Tennessee within a month, and she would then be a village fixture for perhaps a year. I grew madly jealous lest some one should love and win her before I could appear properly before her.
I swore to have her, and when won, I felt sure she would never change, but would wait and wait until she could be mine. I bade the sisters goodbye with a heavy heart—all the heavier, because on their part leave-taking was only kindly.
I hurried to Cincinnati; avoided places where I could meet you; gathered together my guns and fishing-tackle, my cosmetics and wardrobe sufficient for several months absence; arranged my bank account and went to Chicago, where I thought the Ethiopian might change his skin without observation. Jim being able to read my writing when in plain characters, was directed to pack up all my valuables and to hold himself in readiness to come to me at once on receipt of a letter.
He and his wife finally joined me. I sent him to Tennessee to learn the lay of the land in the town in which Rita's aunt resided. To escape any difficulties a Northern negro might encounter in a small Southern town, he went as a boat hand on a steamer running from St. Louis; managed to get sick when —— was reached, and was necessarily put ashore. In a month he returned full of the information I desired.
I learned that the father of the two sisters, Mr. Dixon, had been a wealthy merchant in one of the large southern cities. He was an Englishman by birth and had lost his wife, a high-born Spanish lady, when Rita was a small child. They had no relations in America, except the aunt, under whose care the youngest daughter was living and upon whom she was dependent. When the family was in England for Ralph's health in '50, the partner of Mr. Dixon contrived to raise a very large sum of money and decamped. Mr. Dixon reached home to find himself an absolute pauper. The blow prostrated him, and in a few months he was laid beside his wife. Rita had only a village education, but was a great reader and a good musician. Her aunt, Mrs. Allen, had been governess in a nobleman's house in England, was literary and decidedly uppish and withal intensely avaricious.
Mr. Wilton was the Boston correspondent of the ruined firm, and in the course of settling with it met and won Minnie. Rita's aunt, or rather, aunt-in-law, the widow of her father's only brother, took charge of her and made her home an unhappy one, not by direct unkindness, but by her querulous, carping and sarcastic disposition and manner. She would long since have gone to her sister but for a dislike of Wilton, who, though most kind to his wife, was a selfish man, and had given his young sister-in-law some great offense for which the Spanish blood, so hot in her veins, forbade forgiveness.
I do not remember ever to have told you that Jim Madison, the obedient servant and devoted slave of his once master, is a man of great native intellect. When a boy, I taught him to read a little and in Cincinnati spent much time trying to educate him. He was wonderfully apt and occasionally with strangers uses good English, but with me and my intimates prefers to be the negro servant and to use plantation language. He is intensely loving, absolutely honest, and at times startles me by an almost savage dignity inherited through a short line from his African forefathers. Reared among a thousand negroes, for Clifton and Brandon people mingled almost as if of one plantation—jolly and light in his heart, he courted popularity among his kind and became one of the most astute diplomats. I love him as my servant and honor him as a true and honest man; respect, and if he were not my friend, would almost fear him as a shrewd, self poised, ever alert diplomatist. I had known his qualities before, yet the thoroughness of his information brought me from —— amazed me. He managed to get a job of sawing a load of fire-wood and packing it in the aunt's yard, and from that he became domiciled in a room over the kitchen. With his open but shrewd honesty, he became almost a confident of Miss Rita.
You who have never lived in the South cannot understand how closely drawn together are kind masters and mistresses and humble but faithful servants.
The cunning Hindoo who gave me my raven locks and olive complexion, gave me also ingredients to restore my original appearance more rapidly than nature, unassisted, would do, and at the same time, cosmetics, which would enable me to conceal the change while going on. The effects of the cosmetics were entirely temporary, and easily removable.
When Jim returned, I was ready to reassume my skin. When emerging from my bath one morning, I was no longer Jack Felden, but John —— of Clifton, ——. Jim and Dinah shed tears of joy, crying together "Bress de Lord! oh bress de Lord—its Mars John—its hisself shuah"; and they hugged me again and again.
Dinah sat down in a rocking chair and said, "Come to Mammy, honey; jes let Mammy nuss her baby boy one more time, and I'se ready to go to glory."
I lay my head on the loving creature's lap, while she combed out my hair and tried to curl it around her fingers. The curls of my youth, however, were gone forever.
When I looked into the glass, and saw my changed appearance, a sudden revulsion of feeling came over me. I was John ——: I was the unhappy husband of my cold cousin. A gulf arose between Rita and myself. How dare I think of winning the love of that pure girl! I, who was bound by the law of man to another, even though my reason and my heart told me, I was free. So thoroughly had I identified myself with the character of Jack Felden, while wearing his hair and complexion, that the recollection of my real name and position was blurred. It is true, my unfortunate marriage was never entirely forgotten, but I felt myself a new man, with new lights and different possibilities. The husband of Belle had become an unreal shadow—the figment of a disordered imagination. The life I had been living for years began in the Bengalee village, when the cunning Hindoo made me a stranger to my servant—all before that was a dream. Now having laid aside my mask, I was the dead man come back to life, with all his memories and his hated ties.
I took long walks at night out into the open country. I fought the demon of memory; I fought the commands of conscience. But conscience would not down. The blood spot would not out. Despair filled me.
Aided by my temporary cosmetics, I again became Jack Felden, but the change was only partial. My glass told me I was he, my conscience whispered, I was John ——. Mine was a dual being. The hopes of the masquerader were depressed by the fears of the real man. I decided to send Jim to Clifton to learn something of Belle, resolved if she were still clinging to her pride, to speculate boldly—to win a fortune and give it to Rita as a restitution coming from her father's swindler.
You know something of my success in Cincinnati. Jim had been my lucky stone; his rheumatic limbs were my barometer, telling me what the season would be from week to week, and though I did not believe in it, I had speculated on what his joints foretold and was now the possessor of a fair competency—I would risk my all, court fortune's smile to make or break. If fortune should favor me, all would be Rita's; I would avoid her forever; if the fickle jade failed me, Jim and I could gain a livelihood in new endeavors.
While shedding my skin, I had made several small successful ventures in corn and wheat. Jim and I put our heads together (or rather, I put my head to his shins) and we arrived at conclusions, which should lead to wealth, or to poverty. I put aside a couple of thousands for Jim and Dinah, staking all the rest of my fortune in margins. I won from the first. I pushed my luck with reckless daring, turning my profits into margins and new ventures. At the end of two weeks, my means were doubled.
I was eating my dinner—one of the best Dinah ever prepared—when Akbor and Queen watching me close by my chair, suddenly sprang up, and rushed to the door whining and uttering low barks. Jim entered, to be overthrown by the delighted animals. Gathering himself up quickly, he held out his hand to me, an unusual familiarity, for Jim is my friend, yet my slavish servant, and rarely loses the demeanor of the servant.
"Bress de Lord, Mars Jack; shout glory hallelujer Dineh, you black niggar! We'se free! and created equal as shuah as Tom Jeffersom printed de declaratium!"
I made him sit down and tell his story. He told me all he thought of interest regarding the dear home of my childhood.
I tried to get him to the point on which I most desired information, but he could not be induced to alter the thread of his narration in the least detail. Finally I learned that Belle, who had gone abroad twelve months before, was to be married in a month to an Italian Lord.
"Jess think of it Dineh—git it through yo' wool, ole gal.—over dah dey calls men lords. I don't wonnah dat Sodum and Gomorrah was guv up to fire and brimstone. I specks dar was lords in dem days. The reel Lord will make Miss Belle a piller of salt—shuah! stick dat in yo' craw, Dineh—dar is one Lord, and he tells us in de book, dat he am a jellus God."
Jim then spread before me a newspaper printed in ——. It announced, as a most important event—"That the beautiful and queenly Mrs. Belle —— whose husband, Mr. John —— had mysteriously disappeared in 185–, supposed to have died of cholera in India, had become a Catholic and was about to be married to the Marquis of —— in Rome. Mrs. —— had with hopeful love for her husband, for all these years refused to credit the report of his death; even now, she was unwilling to act on information she had gained at great expense, from India; information which every one else thought thoroughly reliable. She had therefore applied to the Pope for a dispensation; that as soon as the formalities necessary at the Vatican were completed, she would at once become the Marchionness of ——. The marriage was to occur on the —— day ——, just one month from the day of the publication of this paper."
Oh Jamison, old fellow, that was a happy hour for me. I had that day closed very successful deals. I was almost rich and could win and wear Rita. I did not for a moment doubt she would be mine, for I honestly believed her my mate. All impatience to fly to her, I made an arrangement to travel south for a Chicago firm, to be paid out of commission alone. Jim informed me that Rita's aunt sometimes rented her front parlor and a bed-room attached, to traveling men with samples; that it was a source of much mortification to the niece, for the elderly lady was rich and had no children, renting the room out of pure avarice. I resolved to lease it, for it would bring me close to Rita and would arouse her animosity, out of which I would snatch victory.
I washed every vestige of Jack Felden from my hair and skin, but put a scar on my cheek, which with a full beard and straight hair, I thought would insure me against all recognition, should chance bring me in contact with some one I had known in early manhood. On reaching ——, leaving my luggage and sample boxes at the wharf, I went at once to the home of the aunt; secured the rooms and agreed to pay a large price for my breakfast and supper in the house. Thus the best of treatment was secured, for the avaricious old lady would try to keep me as long as possible.
My first meal in the house, was supper. When Rita came to the table, she scarcely deigned to notice me. She disliked me for taking the parlor.
Mrs. Allen, the aunt, was a screw, but she was an epicure. Her old cook was an artist. Like all genuine gourmets, the old lady was a table talker, and a good one. I resolved to return Miss Rita's disdain, by ignoring her presence, and if possible to arouse her interest in me, against her will.
When the aunt served me with tea, she said:
"Mr. Felden, there is a cup which I am sure you cannot equal in Chicago. New made people can soon become good judges of coffee, but a connoisseur in tea must have blue blood in his veins."
"I do not boast a long line of ancestry," I rejoined, "but my palate must be the heritage of good blood, for I enjoy the Chinese drink greatly, and am very particular as to the brand. There is only one country in the world where good tea is almost universal. A bad cup in Russia, I found the exception."
"Ah," she said, "but it is in England, that it is always above the average."
"Yes," I acknowledged, "as a food, not as a beverage. English tea is good to eat—that is to mix with, and wash down your muffins. In Russia tea is a drink, and is even jealous of a thing so coarse as sugar. I learned there to put into my cup only a soupçon of sweet."
"You have been in the land of the Czar then, have you?"
"I spent some time within his dominions," I replied.
"You have been a traveler, then I suppose. What other countries have you visited? Pardon my seeming impertinence, but I have found it a good beginning to an acquaintance, to learn where each has been. I have myself, wandered considerably, but only in Europe."
"I have visited nearly every European land;" I said, for I was determined to please her and at the same time to win the attention of the niece, who so far, had only noticed me by casual glances, "have hunted the tiger in Indian jungles and laved my limbs in holy Ganges among its devotees."
"Oh, how charming!" the good lady exclaimed. "I thought I was getting only a liberal lodger and I find I may be entertaining a savant."
"To get myself on the best footing, dear Madam," I rejoined, "I will say I have straddled the equator, and have used the Arctic Circle for a trapeze."
She clapped her hands, saying, "That's capital, is it not, Rita? What else, and where else, Mr. Traveler?"
"In Burmah I have ogled beauties with huge cigars piercing the lobes of their ears, and have worshipped Soudanise ladies closely veiled on the upper Nile, awakening from my dream of adoration to find the Yashmac of my divinities covering ebony coloured features."
"Go on, dear sir, go on, I am wrapt in profound attention," and the old wizened eyes sparkled with pleasure.
"I have been in ——," I glanced at Rita, she was listening with intense interest; I grew ashamed of the game and paused. But knowing how a woman's nature clothes the mysterious man in brightest garments, and is ready to find the prince in beggar's raiment, I resolved to show her a despised drummer, who had been in all lands, and even an actor in wild and dangerous adventures.
"I have crossed the dark teak forests of Siam, where jungle fever kills its victims in a single day, and escaped its venom by swallowing quinine by the handful and by sleeping in the houdah on my elephant's back. A single night on the ground would have been death."
Rita changed her seat to become my vis-a-vis and from then never removed her eyes from my face.
I continued: "In Cambodia I lived a week in a grand palace, surrounded by huge temples of fine architectural beauty; temples and palaces covering a mile square; and excepting my servants, I was the only tenant of a magnificent lost city. Trees were rooting on the friezes of noble porticos and splitting their marble members asunder.
"I was once caged in a small cave near old Golconda, and my guard of honor was a huge tiger, who lay across the entrance to the den, and strove to tear down the barricade I had erected to keep him out. His fierce growls as he wildly scratched against the granite wall, curdled the blood in my veins and his breath came hot upon my face, the winding crevices in the barricade permitting this, while not allowing me to shoot through them. I sat rifle in hand, expecting every minute that my protection would give way, and then barely hoping that I might send a bullet into the monster's brain. Finally the wall toppled—he crouched for the fatal spring, when a shell from my faithful gun pierced his heart, and I sank in a swoon from long excitement, and physical exhaustion."
A sweet voice of intense emotion came across the table.
"And—and—please tell me how long did you lie in the swoon?"
Ah, how I did long to press to my bosom that dear, sympathetic heart!
I replied, "I do not know, but when I came to, I felt I was dying from thirst. I crept through the opening and with the tiger's blood not yet cold, moistened my parching tongue. I lapped it in a sort of revenge."
"That was grand! Oh, why am I not a man?" she exclaimed.
I leaned towards her, my heart spoke in tones she did not mistake. "Thank God! thank God! you are not."
She started, her eyes met mine, every drop of blood seemed to leave her cheek, she was so pale; our eyes looked into our eyes. Her face crimsoned, and she rushed out of the room.
Mrs. Allen apolegetically—"do not mind that child, Mr. Felden, she's an idiot," and then, her face became nearly malignant, "Yes, she's an idiot, a plague and a nuisance."
How I hated her! How I gloated over the idea, that I would take the plague from her, resolved never to ask her consent. For several days the young lady's manner was constrained but not haughty. I was differential but reserved. Indeed I felt a sort of timidity when she was present. I avoided every appearance of throwing myself into her company.
I spent some time in the business quarter of town and soon secured some capital orders for my employers. This gave me real pleasure. You, old Jamison, who are so true to your firm, understand this feeling. I made excursions to other towns where I was somewhat successful.
The fourth Sunday was a glorious sunny day, just the one for a long ramble in the country.
At breakfast I asked Rita to join me in a constitutional. The aunt spoke up, "Of course she will, I would go myself, but my lame foot forbids it."
I proposed going to the hotel to get a lunch.
"No! No!" the old lady said. "No! I will put you up a nice basket. In a few days you will take me out for a long promenade a voiture." I consented by a nod.
With basket in hand, we left the house early. My companion wore a charming but plain walking habit; a boy's straw hat sat jauntily on her head. I was sure I had never seen anything half so beautiful, as was this dark, yet fair young girl. Rita was a glorious walker. Hers was not the gliding swimming motion which in America and especially in the South, has been regarded as the ne plus ultra of female grace; but the light springing movement, with which fair Eve tripped over Eden's bloom bespangled glens, when she gathered flowers of every sweet odor and of every native tint to deck her bridal bed; when she tripped over nature's parterres and scarcely brushed away the dews sparkling on their wealth of fragrant bloom.
We walked and gaily chatted. She lost all the reserve, which since I became an inmate of her auntie's home had more or less marked her demeanor. She was the young village maiden, who had in artless innocence, at Boston's old frog pond, laughingly talked with the respectful stranger. But when our eyes met, her soul spoke unconsciously through them, telling me that she read my heart and was full of sympathy.
We reached a high tree-clad bluff, which overlooked a wide river bend. The sun was warm, but sent upon us no burning rays; rather shimmering his light through the leafy shade. Across the stream, a broad bottom lay, waving in grass and grain, and bright here and there with opening cotton bloom. We sat side by side on a fallen tree, and drank in the beauty of a picture painted from colors worked upon nature's pallette.
We descended toward the river bank to a pretty little spring which Rita had before oftentimes visited. We partook of the lunch Mrs. Allen had put up for us, or as Rita said, "for her gold paying lodger, who was a traveled savant."
She made the welkin ring with her merry laugh, as she took the wrapping paper from a dusty bottle of claret.
"Oh! my generous aunty! see, here is genuine Chateau Lafitte! I knew she had it, but I have seen a bottle of it but once on her table, and that was when President Polk dined with us, a good while ago. Poor aunty! You have surely bewitched her, Mr. Felden."
The lunch was delicious, and we did it ample justice. "See, Mr. Felden, here is real spring chicken broiled to a "T." Poor aunt; strangely inconsistent aunty. A lavish miser! a generous lover of self! A born epicure."
We wandered among little gorges: she was happy, for she was a joyous young girl, set free in nature's haunts. I was happy because by my side was my own—my Heaven given mate, the rib taken from my long ago progenitor, and now given back to me. Grown somewhat tired, we sat upon the grass covered root of an upturned tree. I said something, I remember not what, my companion started; I noticed and adverted to it.
"Mr. Felden, do you know you frequently startle me. I seem to hear in your voice a tone I have heard before, or have listened to in my dreams." I felt the hour had come.
"Miss Rita. I owe to you a confession. I am not what I am." I spoke with all the pathos practice among wild and dangerous people had made me master of.
"Listen to me, Rita, pardon my familiarity: but you will forgive me when I have finished."
I rapidly gave her the story of my life, and dwelt upon the meeting with her sister at the flower show, and the hold it took upon me. Again she started, and was about to speak, when with a motion, I stilled her tongue. I spoke of my long wanderings, and then of my seeing her at the Burnett and thinking her the lady of the flower show.
I told her of my visit to Boston. The color left her face, and she faltered out—"I knew it—I see it now, you are Mr. Ford," and crimsoned from neck to the roots of her glossy hair.
"Yes, Rita, I am John ——. I am Jack Ford; and now Jack Felden tells you that he loves you—he worships you and would make you his wife and would be happy,—would make you his wife, his Queen—and would, too, make you happy."
I paused and grasped her hand—she did not withdraw it. For a moment she was silent, and then raising her dark confiding eyes to mine, she said in low tones:
"Thank God, Jack, I have not dreamed and prayed in vain. I will be your wife—I will cling to you through life, and will rest by your side in death."
I drew her unresisting form to my heart, I kissed her lips in one long kiss, and saw, within the gates ajar, the paradise awaiting me.
We arose, and hand in hand, silent, but with heart speaking to heart, walked slowly homeward. We scarcely spoke. Speech was unnecessary. There was a silent communion of souls, still, yet eloquent. We were one. We were as Adam, when first created, male and female; our simple reunion was bliss.
We are to start together next week for Boston, to be married in the presence of Minnie. Mrs. Allen is glad to be freed from the expense of Rita's outfit. She regrets that "a great traveler, who ought to be wiser, can tie himself down to a chit of a girl." I go to Chicago to-morrow to close up my affairs, and to bring Jim and his wife here. This climate will suit them better than that of Chicago. We will halt in Cincinnati long enough to see you, old fellow, and when married we will go abroad for a year.
Congratulate me, dear Jamison, for I am the happiest of men. Yours, never again to perpetuate a folly.
Jack."
I, too, was happy, for I loved Felden as I had loved no one since my wife and little ones went to Heaven.
Imagine my astonishment, my terror, when some weeks later, I received a short letter mailed at St. Louis.
"Dear Jamison, my true and honest friend:Forget me forever! Do not try to look me up; never inquire for me; never again mention my name. Henceforth I am dead to the world.Your friend,Jack."
"Dear Jamison, my true and honest friend:
Forget me forever! Do not try to look me up; never inquire for me; never again mention my name. Henceforth I am dead to the world.
Your friend,Jack."
I did not try to understand these terrible lines. I honored my friend and felt sure he had good reasons for his request. I complied with his demands, except one, I could not forget.
CHAPTER V.
Years passed by, but brought no tidings from Jack Felden. I made no inquiries for him; his last request came to me as from the grave and was sacred. Had we met on the street, I would have passed him unheeded, unless the first advance had come from him.
I said no tidings came from him; that is, no direct or positive tidings.
On the first of May following his letter, a case of Chateau Lafitte, a jasmine turkish pipe and six sealed cans ofLadikiyehtobacco came to my room. Tacked to the box was an envelope containing this message: "On the first day of May and November of every year, drink to the health of a lost friend who loved you. May the cares of life lift from your heart as lightly as the smoke curls from your chibouque." Regularly after that, on November 1st and May 1st, a case of finest claret and a half dozen cans of Turkish tobacco sent from a great wine house in New York, was placed in my room by an express messenger, and never after that did I fail to drink in silence to my friend. Whoever sent the wine and tobacco evidently kept note of my life, for my residence was changed three times, once to a distant city; the messenger found me wherever I was domiciled.
Not long after Felden's disappearance, the troubles which had been brewing between the North and the South broke out into open war. Our house was among the first to close its business as it was wholly dependent on Southern trade. We paid up every dollar we owed and both heads of the firm retired to the country. Service was offered me under another firm, but as I had become a part of the machinery of the old house, I felt such a change would prove uncongenial.
I volunteered in answer to Mr. Lincoln's first call for troops and was sent into camp in Kentucky. In a month I was sick and ordered discharged by the surgeon. A complaint, hitherto unknown to me, forbade active and hard work, but the consolation was offered me that with light, healthful exercise, generous food and abstinence from any nervous strain, I might live to old age. I was given a clerkship in the commissary department, and in '62 was transferred to Washington city. When the war was over I was retained in my position. Close confinement affected my health.
One of my pleasantest memories was of a summer spent in fishing and boating in the neighborhood of Mackinaw. Something impelled me to renew my old friendship with the well-remembered scenes. After a brief stay on the island I became a denizen of a lumber camp located a few miles from the rock which brought me to your acquaintance. Alone in a light row-boat which I had purchased at Buffalo on my way up the lakes, a large part of each day was spent on the water.
One bright day I anchored my boat near the "Rock" I mentioned to you, on the boat coming from the Soo, and wandered in the woods stretching behind it. The forest was of small trees, with here and there an old timer spared by the loggers. Every thing about me was wild, and excepting stumps and upper members of trees from which saw-logs had been removed, there was nothing to indicate fellowship with men. Emerging from a small ravine I came upon an opening in the wood on the edge of which was a cluster of three tents, one apparently for the occupancy of a luxurious owner; a plainer one for servant or servants and a third for a kitchen with a stove pipe projecting through its apex. In front of the principal tent was a sort of porch or shed covered with light boards to keep out the rain, and over-topped with boughs giving it a sylvan character.
I walked toward the tent when a huge old mastiff, fat and unwieldily, sprang toward me with a bark and growl which brought me to a sudden halt. The beast rushed toward me angrily, but all at once paused and smelt about me with his bristles erect. These, however soon smoothed down and the dog whined as if I was not unknown to him. A gentleman and lady stepped from the large tent. Imagine my intense surprise when I recognized before me the stately form of Jack Felden. I repressed all evidences of recognition and with a bow and low apology was about to turn away, when Jack in his old cheery tone, cried out:
"Don't go, Paul, chance has brought you to me; why old Akbar recognized you and wishes you to stop; come back!" His words were kindly and his tone almost loving. I ran to him and for a moment our arms were about each others shoulders and our eyes were moistened by tears. The lady came forward, saying:
"It is Mr. Jamison, Jack, is it not? But I need not ask, for no man, but you Mr. Jamison, would be thus met by my husband."
We were soon seated before that tent in that sweet intercourse which arises only between genuine friends. It was difficult to realize that years had elapsed since I had last seen Jack. He was the same open hearted, genial and dignified man. Shortly afterward, the dog got up lazily, and trotting toward the little ravine, met a gray bearded negro—the Jim Madison who so disturbed me on the Licking river. His pleasure at seeing me seated with Felden and his wife, seemed unbounded. When I repeated to him what I had told his master of my location in the logging camp, he said, in a tone that showed the thing was a matter of course:
"Well! Mars Jack, I'll jes' take de boat an' go to de camp an' fotch Mr. Jamison's things over."
Jack laughed, "Yes, Jim, your hospitality has only run ahead of mine. Jamison must come and make his home with us in 'Big Rock Camp.'"
Before night I was in possession of Jim's tent and he had fixed his cot in a corner of the kitchen. We spent the next few days fishing, walking and talking. The late afternoons and evenings were delightful. Jack sang gloriously to the guitar, and his wife could discourse charming music from that most inharmonious of instruments, the banjo. She had a rich contralto voice and sang with what is higher than all art—exquisite tenderness and deep feeling.
Jack was usually as gay as I had ever known him, but occasionally his face had a tinge of intense sadness, which he evidently struggled to suppress. This expression was never shown in his wife's sight. With her he was a rolicking, joyous man, and every act and word showed him a loving, an idolatrous husband. But when her back was turned he occasionally regarded her with a look of such pain that my heart went out toward him and ached for him.
About a week after my arrival Jack and I were fishing at some distance from the camp, our low conversation had flagged, when he suddenly said: "Mr. Jamison, you must have thought me a brute all of these years."
I quickly responded, "No, Jack! I never doubted you had good reasons for your silence, and nothing would have tempted me here had I dreamed I would meet you."
"I am so glad you came! I have wanted to see you more than you can think." His voice was exquisitely modulated while saying this.
"I wish now to tell you every thing. Rita wishes me to do so. Your great discretion will teach you how far you must hereafter be reticent in her presence. The one great object of my life is to save her pain—to make her happy."
"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 assistance 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 passed 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 titled 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 God! 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, God! 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. God was witness to our betrothal under the open sky. God 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 noble Rita!"
"No, no! Jack, I am your Rita, but not your noble 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 fortitude 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 amusement 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 glass 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 glass, 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 bass 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 God, 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. God 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 passed away.
After a quarter of an hour, as it seemed to us, Mrs. Felden recovered a semi-consciousness—staring first at one of us and then at the other with piteously questioning eyes. When the horrible reality again dawned upon her awakening mind, the forest was filled with heart rending cries, silence only coming when she once more fainted away. I chafed her hands while Jim ran to the tents for camphor and brandy. We bathed her face and neck; fanned her; poured brandy between her parted lips—did all that suggested itself to our terrified minds. The swoon lasted so long that we had almost abandoned hope, when she breathed and opened her eyes—they were vacant.
She wept no more, but in low sweet tones murmured "Jack darling, don't be lonesome; I will come to you! Yes, Jack, I'll come."
These were repeated again and again, as we bore her to the tents and laid her on her bed. She immediately fell into a sleep lasting for hours, and only interrupted by sobs and moans. I watched by her bedside while Jim went off saying he had work on hand which must be done at once. When the poor lady awoke and looked into my face, I thanked the Giver of all, that she was herself again in mind, though her strength seemed quite broken.
Upon Jim's return she said in tones so calm, so gentle and so full of deep suffering, that they pained me almost as much as had her more active grief:
"Sit down Jim and tell me all about it. You said you would tell me all. You see I am calm. You see I can bear anything—everything bravely."
He replied in his simple caressing manner, "not ter day, my chile, you jes eat an' sleep an' git strong; ter morrer I'll tell you everything. You'se weak now, Miss Rita,—wait till ter morrer."
"I will Jim." She hardly spoke again during the day or following night.
When he brought her supper, she tried like an obedient child to eat all he urged upon her, saying in answer to his words of encouragement, "Yes, Jim; I must eat and be strong. I need all my strength."
When at dark, she seemed to sink into sleep, the negro and I sat outside the tent so that we could watch within, but far enough off we thought, to prevent our conversation reaching her ears.
He then told me that on going to the rock in the morning he saw that a large part of it weighing a ton or more, had fallen since the day before into the deep water at the precipice's base; there had been a thin crevice or fissure running through the rock, in which a few vines and small bushes had taken root. Into this crack the heavy rain of the night had swept, eating away the last puny tie which held the two parts together. Jack's weight in the morning was too much for it.
Jim found his rod floating at the base, the hook having caught on a small bush growing nigh. About half way down a part of his coat sleeve was hanging to a rough corner of the jagged rock. As the falling man went down on the broken mass, he had evidently clutched at the projection; had wrapped his arm about it, but had in some way been caught and forced downward tearing the sleeve from the arm.
Jim, who was a keen observer, understood at once that his master was down below among the ruins of the fallen mass. He threw off his clothes and dived to the bottom. In the second dive he discovered what he sought. He found his master's body lying on its back, held and pinioned by a massive stone weighing tons. After making this discovery, he had returned to meet us. But while his mistress slept in the afternoon, leaving me to watch by her side, he had again visited the Rock. He wore heavy flannels to protect himself as much as possible from the chilly water.
He found the body above the knees was free. He tried to draw it out, only to learn to his sorrow, that it could not be removed except by rending it from the lower limbs. The bottom was of gravel so compacted as to be nearly as hard as stone. The dead man had been caught below the knees in a recess or depression in the falling rock. Jim expressed great joy that this depression while holding his master's limbs as in a vise, had protected them from being crushed.
"We'll cut up de wings of de kitchen tent an' sew 'em tergedder three or fo' thick wid twine, and spread 'em over Mar's Jack an' den I'll put rocks on de canvas, an' down thar under de clean water it'll stay till de blessed Jesus calls his chilluns home."
I expressed great gratification that he had thought of this, and suggested that he could send for some loggers to give us aid.
He quickly stopped me. "No! No! Mr. Jamison! Mars Jack's been wearin' masks all dese long years. He's been hidin' from men. No man must' know his las' restin' place. No man but you an' me."
I honored this tender solicitude for his master's secret and at once acquiesced, telling him that, when Mrs. Felden's condition would admit of our both leaving her, I would aid him in his pious endeavors.
"Dat's right Mr. Jamison, me an' you must nuss dat darlin' chile—you an' me an' her an' Dinah knows his secrut. You an' me an' her an' Dinah mus' keep his secrut to our graves. If eny body helps us here, de officers and de newspapers'll be sticking dar oar in. I'd ruther see you an' Miss Rita down dar along side 'er Mars Jack, dan anybody should meddle in his matters."
He said this in subdued tones, but there was on his face a gleam of almost savage determination.
The next day Mrs. Felden was perfectly calm; her mind apparently clear, but there was a far away expression in her eyes that gave me uneasiness.
When Jim had removed the little breakfast table from her bedside, she said, "I am strong to-day, Jim; see how calm I am. I can hear and bear everything, as my husband's wife should do."
He told her all he had discovered, to the minutest detail. He controlled his voice and manner so as not to show the deep emotion with which his loving heart was almost breaking. His voice was low, sweet, and sympathetic. Having finished his account, he said, "Now chile, be a brave good woman. 'Member what a great big man Mars Jack was, an' how he loved his wife mor'n hisself. He's up thar, Miss Rita; his eyes is clar, for Jesus is by his side and makes him see everything; he sees you dis minit, an' knows you'll soon be beside 'im. Don't let him see you miserble."
Mrs. Felden's calmness astonished me. She listened in silence; tears rolled down her cheeks; her breast heaved with low deep sighs, but there was a strange light in her eyes, which looked afar off, and seemed to see her husband as the man described him. When the faithful negro had finished, he had her hand in his. For long minutes she uttered not a word. Her spirit was in that far off land beyond the skies or more probably at the foot of the rock. We watched her in silence.
At last she said, "Jim is right, Mr. Jamison. If my husband could speak to us now, he would bid us keep his secret." Her keenly atuned ears had evidently overheard Jim when he so urgently insisted that no one should help us.
"No one must know what has happened—no one but ourselves; we must do all. I will help for I am strong now. A few loggers have passed our camp, if they come again and make any inquiries, they must be made to believe my husband has gone away, and that he is coming back. No human being must ever know our grave," she quickly added, "where he sleeps."
She paused, her face brightened with unnatural light, and with a voice of exquisite sweetness, she whispered, "sleep well Jack! sleep well my husband, your wife will soon be with you."
Jim at once proceeded to his task. He asked me to row to the nearest store, for some sea-grass cord, and all the chains I could buy, without arousing suspicion.
I found no difficulty in completing my share of the preparations. Jim, in the meanwhile, made two sheets eight to nine feet square, and of four thicknesses of strong canvas, cutting up the wings of the tents for the purpose. We carried in the large boat, several hundred weight of boulders, as heavy as we could handle, to the shore near where poor Felden lay. These were to anchor down, for all time his last winding sheet. Two log chains were fastened securely around the edges of the canvas sheets; a mass of strong boughs were made ready for anchoring over and around the watery grave, so that accretions of sand and gravel collected and held by them, would guard Jack's body securely and well.
CHAPTER VII.
We determined that as soon as these last services to the dead should be concluded, we would at once strike the camp and return to Chicago. When the labors required the strength of both Jim and myself, Mrs. Felden accompanied us. I was unwilling to leave her alone. Her calmness rather alarmed than assured me. It was the calmness, not of resignation, but of despair. When all was as I thought, in readiness, Jim asked me to get several bags of shot; I remembered afterwards, he did not state for what purpose they were needed.
On my return before night, I noticed him and his mistress talking apart from me more than usual. She had, too, strangely altered. Instead of the look of agonized calmness worn by her face for the past few days, her appearance was almost cheerful. I could not help wondering, if after all this woman, apparently so passionate and intense, was of the shallow ones of her sex. She seemed to enjoy her dinner which was late, and ate more heartily than I had known her ever to eat before.
She retired early. Jim and I sat up rather late; he seemed loth for me to go to bed. When he retired, I lay awake for hours pondering over the change in Mrs. Felden. Wearied at last, a profound slumber overcame me.
I awoke in the morning to see the sun already several hours high. Jim was engaged in setting breakfast. I took a short walk. He soon blew the whistle—it was the call to meals. Mrs. Felden did not come out of her tent. There was only one plate on the table. To my enquiries, if she were not coming, he simply answered that I would eat alone. I had slept so well during the night that my appetite was good, and I did full justice to the meal. In answer to my question whether Mrs. Felden would not like something, the negro seated himself before me, the first time I had ever known him to do so of his own volition, and said, "Mr. Jamison, Miss Rita 'll eat no more. She lies by Mars Jack in the deep water. Her soul is wid his at de foot of de Throne of Grace; de blessed Jesus I believe has brushed away her las' sin, if it wur a sin—de las' and almos' only one she ever done."
The truth flashed across my mind at once. I sprang to my feet, and in angry horrified tones demanded—"Jim, has Mrs. Felden drowned herself, and you have done nothing to prevent her mad act?"
"Yes, Mr. Jamison, Miss Rita my mistress, who I loved nex' to my maister, is gone ter God, an' I seen her go, an' ain't lifted a finger or said a word fer ter stop 'er an' more'n that I helpt her."
"Jim Madison, you are a murderer!" I cried in anger. The negro arose. His eyes dilated and his form seemed to expand. His demeanor lost every vestige of the servant. He stood before me a man, black, but of over-powering dignity. His face was stern, but not angry. From his six feet, he seemed to look down upon me; he spoke to me ungrammatically, but in words almost free from negroism, save in the intonation of his voice. He was my equal, and seemed to feel himself my superior. The servant had departed, and in his place was a man,—a man whose every look and gesture bespoke virile power and self-confidence.
"Mr. Jamison, your words an' indignation ain't uncalled for. In your eyes I am a aider in murder. In my eyes what I done wus right. You try to be a christian gentleman, Mr. Jamison, an' I ain't ever seen a single act to make me doubt your goodness. I've professed Christ, and I want to walk in the paths He laid for me, an' as far as a sinful man can, to be a follower of Jesus. If the Saviour'll forgive my old sins, I ain't got no fear he will hole me to account for what I done, an' seen done to-day.
"Mr. Felden told me the day before he died, that you knowed everything about him but one fact. If the Lord could 'er spared him he'd 'er told you all.
"The las' day he lived he couldn't help feelin' that some great misfortune was comin'. He told me that if anythin' happened to him to get you to be a frien' to his wife; if anything happened to 'em both, that you an' me was to be friens in all things. He didn't tell you he feared his wife's mind hung on a hinge, an' it might be easy broken; that fear made him so keerful of her. He's been afeared ever since little Jack died in Lunnun, les' some sudden shock might drive her out her head. He said if he los' her he had some duties to perform for the colored race which gave him his two trues' friens, an' if him an' Miss Rita both died I was to do it. If it wasn't that I knowed I ought to carry out his plans, I'd wish I was by his side at the bottom of the lake.
"When Miss Rita found whar her husban' laid, she wanted to go to his side. You 'member how calm she got. It was 'cause she made up her min' and was at peace. She tole me what she wanted. I knowed she'd carry it out. To her mine it wus right. Her mind you'll say wusn't balanced. But who can prove it? I'd er killed any man who tried to steal her liberty, and to lock her up."
His eyes gleamed as if the blood of his savage African ancestors was surging in his heart. "She asked me to help 'er; what could I do? If I refused, she'd go alone. If we used force here to prevent her, she'd come back, an' then she couldn't reach him to clasp him in her arms in death, as she promised she'd do when he told her their marriage wasn't legal. I says to myself, I can't prevent her, ain't it best for me to help her? It was self-destruction, but my conscience didn't make a single objection. When you went fur the shot, I helped her make a canvas gown, which covered all her body 'cept her arms. The shot you brought I run in pockets all about the dress, I rowed her to the rock in the canoe. I held the boat to the right place.
"Just before she dropt out, she cried, 'I'm comin' my husban', I'm comin'!' After she sunk, I jumped in an' follered her. She laid by her husban's side, with her breas' on his, an' her cheek close 'gainst his face. One arm was on his shoulder. I bent it roun' his neck. I told her I would. I expect she held her breath an' kep' her will till she was ready, an' then she died. She was Mars Jack's brave wife. I helpt her before she went down, and I helpt her down thar. I had to dive down five times afore I got it all right. The water was cold, but I didn't feel it."
He paused a few minutes and then continued: "Mr. Jamison, the man who could 'er resisted Miss Rita's pleadin' when she begged me to help her, would 'er been hard hearteder than me. I done it, an' I thank God I done it good.
"Mars John when he was a school boy tole me an Dineh about a good man before Christ come to save us sinners. That man took some sort 'er tea"—"Was it hemlock?" I interjected. "Yes, that wus it; he took hemlock tea, kaze the city ordered it. Mars John said that nobody ever 'cused that good man of suicide. He told us of a great many good men a long while ago who killed thar selves an' nobody called it suicide. He tole us of one great man running on a sword held out by his servant an' nobody ain't 'cused that servant of murder. Miss Rita done what the good man done a long while ago. She didn't drown herself; she went to her husband kaze she heard him callin' her. I didn't commit murder. I held the sword as 'er faithful servant oughter do."
"Now Mr. Jamison, is it better she'd be alive, the widow of a unmarried-bed; married in Heaven, but her marriage not by the law; the widow of no lawful husban'; to be pinted at by the finger of scorn? Would it be better fur her to be here, with madness peraps in her mine—maybe in a lunatic sylum, or by her husban's side, down thar in the bottom of the lake?"
"Men will be judged, Jim, I believe according to their lights," I answered.
With a sigh he returned, "I'm willin' to be judged! Now, sir, we must finish our task."
We labored four days. Jim dived down and anchored long poles to guide our work. By means of these and by diving he spread the canvas sheets over the bodies. He anchored them safely with the chains and boulders. We let the heavy stones down by cords gently to prevent them from falling upon the bodies. The Big Rock arises in a small land-locked cove, thoroughly protected from outer-waves, and almost hidden from view lake-ward. But for this we could not have performed our task. We strewed the boughs over the canvas, securing them in turn so as to catch the sands and gravels over the last resting place of our loved ones. Chilled though he was to the very bones, the determined negro would not desist from his labours, until thoroughly satisfied.
When all was finished, with uncovered head the negro threw a handful of dirt into the water, saying, his voice broken with sobs: "Dust to dust! Dust to dust!"
We sang a hymn while tears streamed down our faces, and left the dear dead to Him who created them, and to Him who died that man might be redeemed.
It was dusk on Saturday, the fourth day, when our work was ended. When we reached the camp old Akbar who had been sick since the night of the rain, lay dead before the tent. We buried him that night near the rock.
Never was Sabbath rest more needed, than by us the next day. For days we had labored under intense excitement. The strain removed, we were limp and nerveless. Jim advised hot drinks, very warm clothing and wraps and absolute rest.
He covered himself head and all, sleeping heavily for nearly twenty-four hours. Monday morning found him rested but "stiff in der jints."
When we were about to abandon the camp, I intimated that it was necessary for me to go to Chicago, to see to winding up my friend's estate. The negro said with great dignity, "No! Mr. Jamison it is not necessary, but I want you to go. Mr. Felden lef' a paper that makes everything mine. Thar wur three copies of it. One is in the safe in Chicago. Miss Rita had one in a belt on her waist and the other is in a rubber bag here."
He pointed to his waist.
"Ef Miss Rita had er lived every thing would er been hers, excep a good livin for Dineh and me. But now I must take every thing to make good poor colored people happy. The paper tells me how to do it. We don't have to go to the court. Mr. Felden didn't want nobody to know that his wife did not have his lawful name, and fixed it so I can take every thing."
For a few moments he was silent and then continued, "Mr. Felden the day before he died told me a honester man never lived than Mr. Paul Jamison, and ef any thing happened to him he wanted you to be a friend to his wife. Now Mr. Jamison I am rich, but I am a steward an' must use every dollar jis like my marster said I must. Ef you will help me, I will give you a good salary and you kin carry out a noble purpose."
I reflected a few moments and said, "Jim, I accept your proposition, and will devote all of my energies to the cause Mr. Felden had at heart. It is a noble one; one which at this juncture is as worthy as any other on earth. I will, however, take of the salary you offer only what I need for a comfortable life."
He seemed greatly pleased, saying: "I need you Mr. Jamison. In Cincinnati an' in Chicago my master began to educate me. I studied hard, and it was hard work, but I've liked best when I was a servant, to be a humble negro. But now I must be a man, with grave sponserbilities, and must forgit what I was, in what I am. When I ac' the part of a negro servant, I talk like a servant. It comes natral to me an' I likes it. But now I am a servant no more, an' I spose I can change my speech onbeknownst jess like Mars Jack. When he wus rosy and light haired he was John ——, when he wus dark an' black headed, he was Jack Felden.
My granfather was brung from Africy a boy. He allers claimed he wus a great chief—a king. My young master John used to call me "King Jim." He said the Africin heathen cropped out 'er me. I've studied, but I'm ignorant. I know nothing of the world but what he learned me. I learned to read, so I could read his letters. I learned how to talk to fit me to do business for Mr. Felden. My learnin' ain't much, an' that's what I want you for, to help me do my work."
We reached Chicago in due time. Dinah was almost inconsolable when her husband told of the double tragedy. She began to droop and pine away. We rapidly arranged our affairs, finding no difficulty in doing so, for nearly everything was in good stocks and bonds. The bank settled with Madison as per written orders from Mr. Felden, found in his safe; making no inquiries except kindly ones as to his health. These Madison evaded adroitly.
When all was finished, we took Dinah to a warmer climate. Madison needed the change almost as much as she. His natural predisposition to rheumatism had been greatly aggravated by his exposure to the chilly water at the foot of the Rock. Indeed he suffered for many years greatly from that cause. Change of climate did him good, but poor Dinah's complaint, no human agency or climatic influence could reach. One evening about four months after the sad event at the camp, she went out as a burning candle—a flicker, and all was over. Her husband said "She didn't die, she jess went to Jesus an' to her foster-chile."