Kitabı oku: «The Hand but Not the Heart; Or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring», sayfa 10
CHAPTER XX
WHEN Mrs. Loring went back to her chamber, after Mr. Dexter withdrew from the house, she found Jessie in bed, lying as still as if asleep. She looked up when her aunt came to the bedside—at first with stealthy, half-timid glances—then with more of trust, that changed into loving confidence. Mrs. Loring bent down and kissed her.
"Oh, Aunt Phoebe! that was very cruel in him."
"What was cruel, dear?"
The thoughts of Mrs. Loring went farther back than to the interview in her parlor.
"He tried to ruin me even in your regard."
"But he failed, Jessie. I will not believe the lowest whisper of an evil report against you."
"I am as pure in thought and as true in purpose, Aunt Phoebe, as when I went out from you. I do not love Mr. Dexter—I never loved him. Still that is no crime—only a necessity. He understood this in the beginning, and took the risk of happiness—so did I. But he was not satisfied with all that I could give. He wanted a heart, as well as a hand—a living, loving spirit, as well as a body. These he could not possess in me—for the heart loves not by compulsion. Then jealousy was born in his soul, and suspicion followed. Both were groundless. I felt a degrading sense of wrong; and at times, a spirit of rebellion. But I never gave place to a wandering thought—never gave occasion for wrong construction of my conduct. Ah, Aunt Phoebe! that marriage was a sad mistake. A union unblessed by love, is the commencement of a wretched life. It is the old story; and never loses its tragic interest. It was folly in the beginning, and it is madness now."
Mrs. Loring would have questioned her niece closely as to the meaning of Mr. Dexter's allusion to a certain individual as having been too intimate with his wife, but these closing remarks fell like rebuke upon her ears. She remembered how almost like a victim-lamb, Jessie had been led up to the marriage altar; and how she had overruled all objections, and appealing to her honor, had almost constrained her into the fulfillment of a promise that should never have been extorted. And so she remained silent.
"I knew it must come to this sooner or later," Jessie went on; "I knew that a time must arrive when the only alternative for me would be death or separation. The separation has taken place sooner than I had dared to hope; and for the act, I do not hold myself responsible. He flung me off! To a spirit like mine, his language was a strong repulsion; and I swept away from him with a force it would have been vain to resist. We are apart now, and apart forever."
"You are too much excited, Jessie," said Mrs. Loring, laying her finger upon the lips of her niece, "and I must enjoin silence and rest. I have faith in you. I will be your friend, though all the world pass coldly on in scorn."
Tears glistened in the eyes of Mrs. Dexter as she lifted them, with a thankful expression, to the face of her aunt, from whom she had not dared to hope for so tender a reception. She knew Mrs. Loring to be worldly-minded; she knew her to be a woman of not over delicate feelings; and as one easily affected by appearances. That she would blame, denounce, threaten, she had no doubt. A thought of approval, sympathy, aid or comfort in this fearful trial had not stirred in her imagination. This unlooked for kindness on the part of her aunt touched her deeply.
The fact was, Mr. Dexter had gone a step too far. The grossness of this outrage upon his wife, Mrs. Loring could appreciate, and it was just of the kind to arouse all her womanly indignation. A more refined act of cruelty she would not have understood; and might have adjudged her niece as capricious.
"Thank you, dear Aunt Phoebe, for this love and kindness!" Jessie could not help saying. "I need it; and, for all I have been as a wife, am worthy to receive it. As pure in thought and act as when I parted from you do I return; and now all I ask is to become again the occupant of that little chamber I once called my own; there to hide myself from all eyes—there to remain, forgotten by the gay circles in which I moved for a brief season."
"Dear heart! will you not be quiet?" said Mrs. Loring; laying her fingers once more upon her lips.
Mrs. Dexter sighed as her lashes drooped upon her cheeks. Very still she lay after this, and as her aunt stood looking upon her white, shrunken face and hollow eyes, and noted the purple stain on her cheek and temple, tears of compassion filled her eyes, and tender pity softened all her feelings.
That night Jessie slept in her aunt's room. Morning found her in a calmer state, and with less prostration of body than Mrs. Loring had feared would ensue. She did not rise until late, but met her cousins while yet in bed, with a quiet warmth of manner that placed both them and herself at ease with one another, They bad been frightened witnesses of the exciting scenes in the parlor, when Mrs. Dexter twice confronted her husband and met his intimations of wrong with indignant denial. Beyond this their mother had informed them that their cousin had left her home and might not again return to it. For the present she enjoined silence as to what had occurred; and reserve or evasion of questions should curious inquirers approach them at school or elsewhere.
Before Jessie had arisen, Mr. Dexter called. He looked worn and troubled. It was plain that his night had been sleepless.
"How is she?" he asked of Mrs. Loring, almost fearfully, as if dreading the answer. He did not pronounce the name of his wife.
"Better than I had hoped," was replied.
"Has she required the attention of a physician?"
"No."
Mr. Dexter seemed relieved.
"What is her state of mind?"
"She is more tranquil than I had expected to find her."
Mrs. Loring's manner was cold.
"Have you conversed with her this morning?"
"But little."
"Will she see me?"
"I think not."
"Will you ask her?"
"Not now. She is too weak to bear a recurrence of agitating scenes."
Mr. Dexter bit his lips firmly as if striving with his feelings.
"When can I see her?"
"That question I am unable now to answer, Mr. Dexter. But my own opinion is that it will be better for you to see her to-morrow than to-day: better next week than to-morrow. You must give time for calmness and reflection."
"She is my wife!" exclaimed Mr. Dexter, not able to control himself. The manner in which this was said conveyed clearly his thought to Mrs. Loring, and she replied with equal feeling—
"But not your slave to command!"
"Madam! I warn you not to enter into this league against me—not to become a party in this wicked scheme! If you do, then you must bear the consequences of such blind folly. I am not the man to submit tamely. I will not submit."
"You are simply beating the air," replied Mrs. Loring. "There is no league against you—no wicked scheme—nothing beyond your own excited imagination; and I warn you, in turn, not to proceed one step further in this direction."
"Madam! can I see my wife?" The attitude of Mr. Dexter was threatening.
"No, sir. Not now," was the firmly spoken answer.
He turned to go.
"Mr. Dexter."
"Well? Say on."
"I do not wish you to call here again."
"Madam! my wife is harboring here."
"I will give my servant orders not to admit you!" said Mrs. Loring, outraged by this remark.
For an instant Dexter looked as if he would destroy her, were it in his power, by a single glance; then turning away he left the house, muttering impotent threats.
And so the breach grew wider.
"I don't wonder that Jessie could not live with him," said Mrs. Loring to herself. "Such a temper! Dear heart! Who can tell how much she may have suffered?"
CHAPTER XXI
ONCE more Jessie found herself alone in the little chamber where her gentle girlish life, had strengthened towards womanhood. Many times had she visited this chamber since her marriage, going to it as to some pilgrim-shrine, but never with the feelings that now crowded upon her heart. She had returned as a dove, to the ark from the wild waste of waters, wing-weary, faint, frightened—fluttering into this holy place, conscious of safety. She was not to go out again. Blessed thought! How it warmed the life-blood in her heart, and sent the currents in more genial streams through every vein.
But alas! memory could not die. Lethe was only a fable of the olden times. A place of safety is not always a place of freedom from pain. It could not be so in this instance. Yet, for a time, like the exhausted prisoner borne back from torture to his cell, the crushed members reposed in delicious insensibility. The hard pallet was a heaven of ease to the iron rack on which the quivering flesh had been torn, and the joints wrenched, until nature cried out in agony.
Dear little room! Though its walls were narrow, and its furniture simple even to meagreness, it was a palace in her regard to the luxurious chambers she had left. It was all her own. She need not veil her heart there. No semblances were required. No intrusion feared. It seemed to her, for a time, as if she had been so lifted out of the world, as to be no longer a part of it. The hum and shock of men were far below her. She had neither part nor lot in common humanity.
But this could not last. She had formed relations with that world not to be cast off lightly. She was a wife, violently separated from her husband; and setting at defiance the laws which had bound them together.
On the third day Mrs. Dexter received a communication from her husband. It was imperative, reading thus:
"MRS. DEXTER—I have twice sought to gain an interview, and twice been repelled with insult. I now write to ask when and where you will see me. We must meet, Jessie. This rash step, I fear, is going to involve consequences far more disastrous than you have imagined. It is no light thing for a woman to throw herself beyond the pale of her husband's protection.—Something is owed to the world—something to reputation—something to your good name; and much to your husband. I may have been hasty, but I was sincere. There are some things that looked wrong; they look wrong still, and will always look wrong if your present attitude is maintained. I wish to see you, that we may, together, review these unhappy questions, and out of a tangled skein bring even threads, if possible. Let me hear from you immediately.
"YOUR HUSBAND."
Twice Mrs. Dexter read this letter, hurriedly at first, but very slowly the second time; weighing each word and sentence carefully. She then laid it aside, and almost crouching down in her chair, fell into such deep thought that she seemed more like one sleeping than awake. She did not attempt an answer until the next day. Then she penned the following:
"To LEON DEXTER—In leaving your house and your protection, I was not governed by caprice or impulse. For some time I have seen that, sooner or later, it must come to this; that the cord uniting us was too severely strained, and must snap. I did not suppose the time so near at hand—that you would drag upon it now with such a sudden force. But the deed is done, and we are apart forever. I cannot live with you again—your presence would suffocate me. There was a mutual wrong in our marriage; but I was most to blame; for I knew that I did not and never could love you as I believed a husband should be loved. But you had extorted from me a promise of marriage, and I believed it to be my duty to fulfill that promise. Young, inexperienced, blind to the future, I took up the burdens you laid at my feet, and believed myself strong enough to carry them all the days of my life. It was a fatal error. How painfully I have struggled on—how prayerfully, how patiently, how self-denyingly, you can never know. Yet, without avail. I have fallen by the way, and there is not strength enough in me to lift the burdens again. I know this, and One besides; and I am content to rest the case with Him. The world will blame—the church censure—the law condemn. Let it be so. All that is light to the sufferings I have endured, and from which I have fled.
"I cannot see you, Mr. Dexter—I will not see you. Our ways in this world have parted, and forever. The act was not mine, but yours. You flung me off with a force that overcame all scruple—all question of right—all effort to cling to you as my husband. I was trying, in my feeble way—for not much power remained—to be a dutiful wife, when you extinguished all hope of success by a charge as false as the evil spirit who whispered in your too willing ears a suspicion of infidelity against one who had never permitted a thought of wrong towards her husband to enter even the outermost portal of her mind. I had not seen the person to whom you allude since my accidental meeting with him at Newport, so basely construed into design; and his passing my window at the moment you returned home, was as unexpected to me as to you.
"I had hoped that my previous solemn assurances were sufficient to give you confidence in my integrity. But this was an error. You had no faith in me; and assailed me with violence when my thoughts were as true to honor as ever were yours. Did you imagine that I could lie passive at your feet, so trampled down and degraded? No, sir! God gave me a higher consciousness—a purer spirit—a nobler individuality! You should have mated one of a different stamp from me!
"And yet I pity you, Leon Dexter! This web of trouble, which your own hands have woven around your life, will fetter and gall you at every step in your future journey. I have not left you in a spirit of retaliation; but simply because the natural strain of repulsion was stronger than all the attractive forces that held us together. I only obeyed a law against which weak nature strove in vain. Were it in my power, I would make all your future bright with the warmest sunshine. But over your future I have no control—yet, sadly enough, are our destinies linked, and the existence of each will be a thorn in the other's heart.
"I have not much strength left. The contest has nearly extinguished my life. This is the last struggle I shall have with you. My first weak thought was to return your letter without a word in reply. But that would have been a wrong to both; and so I have made you this communication, and you must regard it as final. Farewell, unhappy Leon Dexter! I would have saved you from this calamity, but you would not let me! May He who has permitted you thus to drag down the temple of domestic happiness, and bury yourself amid the ruins, give you, in this direful calamity, a higher than human power of endurance. May the fierce flames of this great ordeal, find gold in your character beyond the reach of fire. Farewell, forever! and may God bless and keep you! The prayer is from a heart yet free from guile, and the lips that breathe it upward are as pure as when you laid upon them the marriage kiss! God keep them as guileless and as pure! Amen!
"JESSIE."
Dexter accepted the decision of his wife as final. What else was left for him? He would have been the dullest of men not to have seen the spirit of this answer, shining everywhere through the letter. Something more than feebly dawned the conviction in his mind, that he had foully wronged his wife, and that the fearful calamity which had overtaken him in the morning of his days, was of his own creating. He did not again attempt to see her; made no further remonstrance; offered no kind of annoyance. A profound respect for the suffering woman who had abandoned him, took the place of indignation against her. In silence he sat down amid his crushed hopes and broken idols, and waited for light to guide him and strength to walk onward. Like thousands of other men, he had discovered that a human soul was not a plaything, nor a piece of machinery to wind up and set in motion at will; and like thousands of other men, he had made this discovery too late.
CHAPTER XXII
WITHOUT a note of warning, the public were startled by the news that Mrs. Dexter had left her husband. Wisely, sober second thought laid upon the lips of Mr. Dexter the seal of silence. He gave no reason for the step his wife had taken, and declined answering all inquiries, even from his nearest friends. From a man of impulse, he seemed changed at once into a man of deliberate purpose. His elegant home was not given up, though he lived in it a kind of half hermit life. Abroad, he was reserved; while everything about him gave signs of a painful inward conflict.
Of course, the social air was full of rumors, probable and improbable, but none of them exactly true. Mrs. Dexter was wholly silent, except to her wisest and truest friend, Mrs. De Lisle—and her discretion ever kept her guarded. Mrs. Loring simply alleged "incompatibility of temper"—that vague allegation which covers with its broad mantle so wide a range of domestic antagonisms. And so the public had its appetite piqued, and the nine days' wonder became the wonder of a season. Hints towards the truth were embellished by gossips' ready imaginations, and stories of wrong, domestic tyranny, infidelity, and the like, were passed around, and related with a degree of circumstantiality that gave them wide credence. Yet in no instance was the name of Hendrickson connected with that of Mrs. Dexter. So transient had been their intercourse, that no eye but that of jealousy had noted their meeting as anything beyond the meeting of indifferent acquaintances.
It was just one week from the day Paul Hendrickson caught an unexpected glimpse of Mrs. Dexter's face at the window, and passed on with her image freshened in his heart, that he called in at the Ardens', after an unusually long absence, to spend an evening. Miss Arden's countenance lighted with a sudden glow on his appearance, the rich blood dyeing her cheeks, and giving her face a heightened charm; and in the visitor's eyes there was something gentler and softer in her beauty than he had before observed. He probably guessed the cause; and the thought touched his feelings, and drew his heart something nearer to her.
"That is a painful story about Mrs. Dexter," said Mrs. Arden, almost as soon as the young man came in. The recently heard facts were uppermost in her thoughts.
"What story? I have not heard anything." Hendrickson was on his guard in a moment; though he betrayed unusual interest.
"It is dreadful to think of!" said Miss Arden. "What a wretched creature she must be! I always thought her one of the best of women. Though I must own that at Saratoga last summer, she showed rather more fondness for the society of other men than she did for that of her husband."
"I am still in the dark," said Mr. Hendrickson, with suppressed excitement.
"Then you haven't heard of it? Why, it's the town talk."
"No."
"There's been a separation between Mrs. Dexter and her husband," remarked Mrs. Arden. "She left him several days ago, and is now with her aunt, Mrs. Loring."
"A separation! On what ground?" Hendrickson's breathing oppressed him.
"Something wrong with Mrs. Dexter, I am told. She had too many admirers—so the story goes; and, worse still—for admiration she couldn't help—one lover."
It was Mrs. Arden who said this.
"Who was the lover?" asked Mr. Hendrickson. His voice was so quiet, and his tones so indifferent, that none suspected the intense interest with which he was listening.
"I have not heard his name," replied Mrs. Arden.
"Does he live in this city?"
"I believe not. Some new acquaintance, made at Newport, I think. You remember that she was very ill there last summer?"
"Yes."
"Well, the cause of that illness is now said to have been a discovery by Mr. Dexter of some indiscretion on her part, followed by angry remonstrance on his."
"That is the story?"
"Yes."
"And what caused the separation which has just taken place?"
"A renewal of this intimacy," said Mrs. Arden.
"A very serious charge; and, I believe without foundation in truth," replied Hendrickson. He spoke slowly, yet not with strong emphasis. His auditors did not know that he was simply controlling his voice to hide his agitation.
"Oh, there is no doubt as to its truth," said Mrs. Arden. "The facts have been substantiated; so Mrs. Anthony told me to-day; and she has been one of Mrs. Dexter's most intimate friends."
"What facts?" inquired Hendrickson.
"Facts, that if they do not prove crime against Mrs. Dexter, show her to have been imprudent to the verge of crime."
"Can you particularize?" said the young man.
"Well, no I can't just do that. Mrs. Anthony ran on at such a rate that I couldn't get the affair adjusted in my mind. But she asserts positively that Mrs. Dexter has gone considerably beyond the boundary of prudence; and she is no friend of Dexter's, I can assure you. As far as I can learn, there have been frequent meetings between this lover and Mrs. Dexter during the husband's absence. An earlier return home, a few days ago, led to a surprise and an exposure. The result you know."
"I must make bold to pronounce this whole story a fabrication," said Mr. Hendrickson, with rising warmth; "It is too improbable."
"Worse things than that have happened, and are happening every day," remarked Mrs. Arden.
"Still I shall disbelieve the story," said Mr. Hendrickson, firmly.
"What else would justify him in sending her home to her aunt?" asked Mrs. Arden.
"He sent her home, then? That is the report?" remarked Hendrickson.
"Some say one thing and some another."
"And a story loses nothing in the repetition."
"You are very skeptical," said Miss Arden.
"I wish all men and women were more skeptical than they are, in touching the wrong doings of others," replied the young man. "The world is not so bad as it seems. Now I am sure that if the truth of this affair could really be known, we should find scarcely a single fact in agreement with the report. I have heard that Mr. Dexter is blindly jealous of his wife."
"Oh, as to that, Mrs. Anthony says that he made himself ridiculous by his jealousy at Saratoga last summer. And I now remember that he used to act strangely sometimes," said Mrs. Arden.
"A jealous man," returned Hendrickson, "is a very bad judge of his wife's conduct; and more likely to see guilt than innocence in any circumstance that will bear a double explanation. Let us then lean to the side of charity, and suppose good until the proof of evil stares us in the very face; as I shall do in this instance. I have always believed Mrs. Dexter to be the purest of women; and I believe so still."
Both Mrs. Arden and her daughter seemed annoyed at this defence of a woman against whom they had so readily accepted the common rumor. But they said nothing farther. After that an unusual embarrassment marked their intercourse. As early as he could, with politeness, retire, Hendrickson went away. He did not err in his own elucidation of the mystery; for he remembered well the vision of Mrs. Dexter's face at the window—her instant sign of feeling—his own quick but not meditated response—and the sudden appearance of her husband, whose clouded countenance was full of angry suspicion.
"To this!—and so soon!" said Hendrickson to himself, as he left the house of Mrs. Arden. "Oh, that I could stretch out my hand to save her!—That I could shield her from the tempests!—That I could shelter her from the burning heats! But I cannot. There is a great gulf between us, and I may not pass to her, nor she to me. Oh, my soul! is this separation to be for all time?"
There was rebellion in the heart of Paul Hendrickson when he reached his home; and a wild desire to overleap all barriers of separation.
"There will be a divorce in all probability," so he began talking with himself. "Jessie will never return to him after this violent separation; and he, after a time, will ask to have the marriage annulled. He will not be able to bring proof of evil against her—will, I am sure, not even attempt it; for no evidence exists. But her steady refusal to live with him as his wife, will enable him, it may be, to get a divorce. And then!"
There was a tone of exultation in his voice at the closing words.
"And whosoever marrieth her which is put away, committeth adultery."
Hendrickson started to his feet, his face as pale as ashes, and glanced almost fearfully about the room. The voice seemed spoken in the air—but it was not so. The warning had reached his sense of hearing by an inner way.
Then he sat down, and pondered this new question, so suddenly presented for solution, turning it towards every light—viewing it now from the side of human feeling and human reason—and now with the light of Divine Revelation shining upon it. But he was not satisfied. The letter of the record was against him; but nature cried out for some different reading. At length he made an effort to thrust the subject aside.
"What folly is this?" he said, still talking with himself. "Wait! wait! wait!—the time is not yet. Separation only exists. There is no divorce. The great, impassable gulf is yet between us. I cannot go to her. She cannot come to me. I must wait, hopefully, if not patiently, the issue of events."
The thoughts of Hendrickson had once more been turning themselves towards Miss Arden, and he had felt the glow of warmer feelings. He had even begun to think again of marriage.
"Let that illusion go!" he said. "It must no longer tempt me to the commission of an act that reason and conscience both pronounce wrong. I do not love Mary Arden; therefore, I will not marry her. I settle that matter now, and forever."
And the decision was final. He did not visit her again for many months, and then only after her engagement to another.
