Nearly a year after Felden's disappearance, I was surprised by the
following letter from him:
"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 soup├žon 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."
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.