FRAGMENTARY LIFE RECORDS.
The records of John Morgan's life are fragmentary. It was only by
joining the pieces and filling in the gaps that his friends obtained a
clear and rounded conception of his true character and knew at last the
real man.
Born about 1820, the only son of a wealthy and influential father, his
possibilities seemed almost unlimited. To such a youth the peculiar
system of the South gave advantages not at that time afforded by any
other section. The South was approaching the zenith of its power; its
slaves did the field work of the whole people, leaving their owners
leisure for study, for travel and for display. Politics furnished the
popular field for endeavor; young men trained to the bar, polished by
study and foreign travel and inspired by lofty ideals of government,
threw themselves into public life, with results that have become now a
part of history.
At 22, John Morgan was something more than a mere promise. He had
graduated with high honors at the Virginia University and returning home
had engaged in the practice of law--his maiden speech, delivered in a
murder case, winning for him a wide reputation. But at that critical
period a change came over him. To the surprise of his contemporaries he
neglected his growing practice, declined legislative honors and
gradually withdrew to the quiet of Ilexhurst, remaining in strict
retirement with his mother.
The life of this gentlewoman had never been a very happy one; refined
and delicate she was in sharp contrast to her husband, who, from the
handsome, darkhaired gallant she first met at the White Sulphur Springs,
soon developed into a generous liver, with a marked leaning towards
strong drink, fox-hunting and cards. As the wife, in the crucible of
life, grew to pure gold, the grosser pleasures developed the elder
Morgan out of all likeness to the figure around which clung her girlish
memories.
But Providence had given to her a boy, and in him there was a promise of
happier days. He grew up under her care, passionately devoted to the
beautiful mother, and his triumphs at college and at the bar brought
back to her something of the happiness she had known in dreams only.
The blow had come with the arrival of Rita Morgan's mother. From that
time John Morgan devoted himself to the lonely wife, avoiding the
society of both sexes. His morbid imagination pictured his mother and
himself as disgraced in the eyes of the public, unconscious of the fact
that the public had but little interest in the domestic situation at
Ilexhurst, and no knowledge of the truth. He lived his quiet life by her
side in the little room at home, and when at last, hurt by his horse,
the father passed away, he closed up the house and took his mother
abroad for a stay of several years. When they returned life went on very
much as before.
But of the man who came back from college little was left, aside from an
indomitable will and a genius for work. He threw himself into the
practice of his profession again, with a feverish desire for occupation,
and, bringing to his aid a mind well stored by long years of reflection
and reading, soon secured a large and lucrative practice.
His fancy was for the criminal law. No pains, no expense was too great
for him where a point was to be made. Some of his witnesses in noted
cases cost him for traveling expense and detectives double his fee. He
kept up the fight with a species of fierce joy, his only moments of
elation, as far as the public knew, being the moments of victory.
So it was that at 40 years of age John Morgan found himself with a
reputation extending far beyond the state and with a practice that left
him but little leisure. It was about this time he accidentally met
Marion Evan, a mere girl, and felt the hidden springs of youth rise in
his heart. Marion Evan received the attentions of the great criminal
lawyer without suspicion of their meaning.
When it developed that he was deeply interested in her she was
astonished and then touched. It was until the end a matter of wonder to
her that John Morgan should have found anything in her to admire and
love, but those who looked on knowingly were not surprised. Of gentle
ways and clinging, dependent nature, varied by flashes of her father's
fire and spirit, she presented those variable moods well calculated to
dazzle and impress a man of Morgan's temperament. He entered upon his
courtship with the same carefulness and determination that marked his
legal practice, and with the aid of his wealth and reborn eloquence
carried the citadel of her maiden heart by storm. With misgivings Albert
Evan yielded his consent.
But Marion Evan's education was far from complete. The mature lover
wished his bride to have every accomplishment that could add to her
pleasure in life; he intended to travel for some years and she was not
at that time sufficiently advanced in the languages to interpret the
records of the past. Her art was of course rudimentary. Only in vocal
music was she distinguished; already that voice which was to develop
such surprising powers spoke its thrilling message to those who could
understand, and John Morgan was one of these.
So it was determined that Marion should for one year at least devote
herself to study and then the marriage would take place. Where to send
her was the important question, and upon the decision hinges this
narrative.
Remote causes shape our destinies. That summer John Morgan took his
mother abroad for the last time and in Paris chance gave him
acquaintance with Gaspard Levigne, a man nearly as old as himself.
Morgan had been touched and impressed by the unchanging sadness of a
face that daily looked into his at their hotel, but it is likely that he
would have carried it in memory for a few weeks only had not the owner,
who occupied rooms near his own, played the violin one night while he
sat dreaming of home and the young girl who had given him her promise.
He felt that the hidden musician was saying for him that which had been
crying out for expression in his heart all his life. Upon the impulse of
the moment he entered this stranger's room and extended his hand.
Gaspard Levigne took it. They were friends.
During their stay in Paris the two men became almost inseparable
companions. One day Gaspard was in the parlor of his new friend, when
John Morgan uncovered upon the table a marble bust of his fiancee and
briefly explained the situation. The musician lifted it in wonder and
studied its perfections with breathless interest. From that time he
never tired of the beautiful face, but always his admiration was mute.
His lips seemed to lose their power.
The climax came when John Morgan, entering the dim room one evening,
found Gaspard Levigne with his face in his hands kneeling before the
marble, convulsed with grief. And then little by little he told his
story. He was of noble blood, the elder son of a family, poor but proud
and exclusive. Unto him had descended, from an Italian ancestor, the
genius of musical composition and a marvelous technique, while his
brother seemed to inherit the pride and arrogance of the Silesian side
of the house, with about all the practical sense and business ability
that had been won and transmitted.
He had fallen blindly in love with a young girl beneath him in the
social scale, and whose only dowry was a pure heart and singularly
perfect beauty. The discovery of this situation filled the family with
alarm and strenuous efforts were made to divert the infatuated man, but
without changing his purpose. Pressure was brought to bear upon the
girl's parents, with better success.
Nothing now remained for Gaspard but an elopement, and this he planned.
He took his brother into his confidence and was pleased to find him
after many refusals a valuable second. The elopement took place and
assisted by the brother he came to Paris. There his wife had died
leaving a boy, then nearly two years old.
Then came the denouement; the marriage arranged for him had been a
mockery.
It was a fearful blow. He did not return to his home. Upon him had been
saddled the whole crime.
When the story was ended Gaspard went to his room and brought back a
little picture of the girl, which he placed by the marble bust. Morgan
read his meaning there; the two faces seemed identical. The picture
would have stood for a likeness of Marion Evan, in her father's hands.
The conduct of Gaspard Levigne upon the discovery of the cruel fraud was
such as won the instant sympathy of the American, whose best years had
been sacrificed for his mother. The musician had not returned to Breslau
and exposed the treachery of the brother who was the idol of his
parents; he suffered in silence and cared for the child in an
institution near Paris. But John Morgan went and quietly verified the
facts. He engaged the ablest counsel and did his best to find a way to
right the wrong.
Then came good Mrs. Morgan, who took the waif to her heart. He passed
from his father's arms, his only inheritance a mother's picture, of
which his own face was the miniature.
Months passed; Gaspard Levigne learned English readily, and one more
result of the meeting in Paris was that John Morgan upon returning to
America had, through influential friends, obtained for Levigne a
lucrative position in a popular American institution, where instrumental
and vocal music were specialties.
It was to this institution that Marion Evan was sent, with results
already known.
The shock to John Morgan, when he received from Marion a pitiful letter,
telling of her decision and marriage, well-nigh destroyed him. The mind
does not rally and reactions are uncertain at 40. In the moment of his
despair he had torn up her letters and hurled her likeness in marble far
out to the deepest part of the lake. Pride alone prevented him following
it. And in this hour of gloom the one remaining friend, his mother,
passed from life.
The public never knew his sufferings; he drew the mantle of silence a
little closer around him and sank deeper into his profession. He soon
became known as well for his eccentricities as for his genius; and
presently the inherited tendency toward alcoholic drinks found him an
easy victim. Another crisis in his life came a year after the downfall
of his air castle, and just as the south was preparing to enter upon her
fatal struggle.
The mother of Rita had passed away, and so had the young woman's
husband. Rita had but recently returned to Ilexhurst, when one night she
came into his presence drenched with rain and terrorized by the
fierceness of an electrical storm then raging. Speechless from
exhaustion and excitement she could only beckon him to follow. Upon the
bed in her room, out in the broad back yard, now sharing with its
occupant the mud and water of the highway, her face white and her
disordered hair clinging about her neck and shoulders, lay the
insensible form of the only girl he had ever loved--Marion Evan, as he
still thought of her. He approached the bed and lifted her cold hands
and called her by endearing names, but she did not answer him. Rita, the
struggle over had sunk into semi-consciousness upon the floor.
When the family physician had arrived John Morgan had placed Rita upon
the bed and had borne the other woman in his arms to the mother's room
upstairs, and stood waiting at the door. While the genial old
practitioner was working to restore consciousness to the young woman
there, a summons several times repeated was heard at the front door.
Morgan went in person and admitted a stranger, who presented a card that
bore the stamp of a foreign detective bureau. Speaking in French the
lawyer gravely welcomed him and led the way to the library. The
detective opened the interview:
"Have you received my report of the 14th inst., M. Morgan?"
"Yes. What have you additional?"
"This. Mme. Levigne is with her husband and now in this city." Morgan
nodded his head.
"So I have been informed." He went to the desk and wrote out a check.
"When do you purpose returning?"
"As soon as possible, monsieur; to-morrow, if it pleases you."
"I will call upon you in the morning; to-night I have company that
demands my whole time and attention. If I fail, here is your check. You
have been very successful."
"Monsieur is very kind. I have not lost sight of Mme. Levigne in nearly
a year until to-night. Both she and her husband have left their hotel;
temporarily only I presume." The two men shook hands and parted.
Upstairs the physician met Morgan returning. "The lady will soon be all
right; she has rallied and as soon as she gets under the influence of
the opiate I have given and into dry clothes, will be out of danger. But
the woman in the servant's house is, I am afraid, in a critical
condition."
"Go to her, please," said Morgan quickly. Then entering the room he took
a seat by the side of the young woman--her hand in his. Marion looked
upon his grave face in wonder and confusion. Neither spoke. Her eyes
closed at last in slumber.
Then came Mamie Hester, the old woman who had nursed him, one of those
family servants of the old South, whose lips never learned how to betray
secrets.
* * * * *
The sun rose grandly on the morning that Marion left Ixlexhurst. She
pushed back her heavy veil, letting its splendor light up her pale face
and gave her hand in sad farewell to John Morgan. Its golden beams
almost glorified the countenance of the man; or was it the light from a
great soul shining through?
"A mother's prayers," she said brokenly. "They are all that I can give."
"God bless and protect you till we meet again," he said, gently.
She looked long and sadly toward the eastern horizon in whose belt of
gray woodland lay her childhood home, lowered her veil and hurried away.
A generation would pass before her feet returned upon that gravel walk.