Produced by Charles Aldarondo. HTML version by Al Haines.
THE TWO WIVES;
OR, LOST AND WON.
BY
T. S. ARTHUR.
PHILADELPHIA:
1851.
PREFACE.
THE story of the "Two Wives; or, Lost and Won," is intended to show the
power of tender, earnest, self-forgetting love, in winning back from
the path of danger a husband whose steps have strayed, and who has
approached the very brink of ruin; and, by contrast, to exhibit the sad
consequences flowing from a want of these virtues under like
circumstances.
This book is the third in the Series of "ARTHUR'S LIBRARY FOR THE
HOUSEHOLD." The fourth, which is nearly ready, will be called "THE WAYS
OF PROVIDENCE; OR, HE DOETH ALL THINGS WELL."
THE TWO WIVES.
CHAPTER I.
"YOU are not going out, John?" said Mrs. Wilkinson, looking up from the
work she had just taken into her hands. There was a smile on her lips;
but her eyes told, plainly enough, that a cloud was upon her heart.
Mrs. Wilkinson was sitting by a small work-table, in a neatly furnished
room. It was evening, and a shaded lamp burned upon the table. Mr.
Wilkinson, who had been reading, was standing on the floor, having
thrown down his book and risen up hastily, as if a sudden purpose had
been formed in his mind.
"I shall only be gone a little while, dear," returned Mr. Wilkinson, a
slight air of impatience visible beneath his kind voice and manner.
"Don't go, John," said Mrs. Wilkinson, still forcing a smile to her
countenance. "I always feel so lonely when you are away. We only have
our evenings to be together; and I cannot bear then to be robbed of
your company. Don't go out, John; that's a good, dear husband."
And Mrs. Wilkinson, in the earnestness of her desire to keep her
husband at home, laid aside her sewing, and rising, approached and
leaned her hands upon his shoulder, looking up with an affectionate,
appealing expression into his face.
"You're a dear, good girl, Mary," said Mr. Wilkinson, tenderly, and he
kissed the pure lips of his wife as he spoke. "I know it's wrong to
leave you alone here. But, I won't be gone more than half an hour.
Indeed I won't. See, now;" and he drew forth his watch; "it is just
eight o'clock, and I will be home again precisely at half-past eight,
to a minute."
Mrs. Wilkinson made no answer; but her husband saw that tears were in
the eyes fixed so lovingly upon him.
"Now don't, love," said he, tenderly, "make so much of just half an
hour's absence. I promised Elbridge that I would call around and see
him about a little matter of business, and I must keep my word. I had
forgotten the engagement until it crossed my mind while reading."
"If you have an engagement." There was a certain emphasis in the words
of Mrs. Wilkinson that caused her husband to partly turn his face away.
"I have, dear. But for that, I should not think of leaving you alone."
Almost instinctively Mrs. Wilkinson withdrew the hands she had placed
upon the shoulder of her husband, and receded from him a step or two;
at the same time her face was bent downwards, and her eyes rested upon
the floor.
For some moments Mr. Wilkinson stood as if in earnest debate with
himself; then he said, in a cheerful, lively tone--
"Good-by, love. I shall only be gone half an hour." And turning away,
left the room. He did not pause until he was in the street. Then a
spirit of irresolution came over him, and he said to himself, as he
moved slowly away,
"It isn't kind in me to leave Mary alone in this way; I know it isn't.
But I want to see Elbridge; and, in fact, partly promised that I would
call upon him this evening. True, I can say all I wish to say to him in
the morning, and to quite as good purpose. But--"
Wilkinson, whose steps had been growing more and more deliberate,
stopped. For some time he stood, in a thoughtful attitude--then slowly
returned. His hand was in his pocket, his dead-latch key between his
fingers, and his foot upon the marble sill of his door. And thus he
remained, in debate with himself, for as long a time as two or three
minutes.
"Yes; I must see him! I had forgotten that," he exclaimed, in a low
tone, and suddenly stepped back from the door, and with a rapid pace
moved down the street. A walk of ten minutes brought him to the house
of Mr. Elbridge. But it so happened that this gentleman was not at home.
"How soon do you expect him to return?" was inquired of the servant.
"He may be here in half an hour; or not before ten o'clock," was the
reply.
Wilkinson was disappointed. Leaving his name with the servant, and
saying that he would probably call again during the evening, he
descended the steps and walked away. He was moving in the direction of
his home, and had arrived within a block thereof when he stopped,
saying to himself as he did so--
"I must see Elbridge this evening. It is already nearly half an hour
since I left home, and I promised Mary that I would not remain away a
moment longer than that time. But, I did not think Elbridge would be
out. Poor Mary! She looks at me with such sad eyes, sometimes, that it
goes to my very heart. She cannot bear to have me out of her sight. Can
she doubt me in any thing? No; I will not believe that. She is a
loving, gentle-minded creature--and one of the best of wives. Ah me! I
wish I were more like her."
Still Wilkinson remained standing, and in debate with himself.
"I will go home," said he, at length, with emphasis, and walked quickly
onward. He was within a few doors of his own home, when his steps began
to linger again. He had come once more into a state of irresolution.
"Perhaps Elbridge has returned." This thought made him stop again. "He
must have understood me that I would be around."
Just at this moment the crying of a child was heard.
"Is that Ella?" Wilkinson walked around a little way, until he came
nearly opposite his own house. Then he stopped to listen more
attentively.
Yes. It was the grieving cry of his own sick babe.
"Poor child!" he murmured. "I wonder what can ail her?"
He looked up at the chamber windows. The curtains were drawn aside, and
he saw upon the ceiling of the room the shadow of some one moving to
and fro. He did not doubt that it was the shadow of his wife, as, with
their sick babe in her arms, she walked to and fro in the effort to
soothe it again to sleep. Had there been a doubt, it would have been
quickly dispelled, for there came to his ears the soft tones of a voice
he knew full well--came in tones of music, low and soothing, but with
most touching sweetness. It was the voice of his wife, and she sang the
air of the cradle-hymn with which he had been soothed to rest when he
lay an innocent babe in his mother's arms.
The feelings of Wilkinson, a good deal excited by the struggle between
affection and duty on the one side, and appetite and inclination on the
other, were touched and softened by the incident, and he was about
entering his house when the approaching form of a man, a short distance
in advance, caught his eye, and he paused until he came up.
"Elbridge! The very one I wished to see!" he exclaimed, in a low voice,
as he extended his hand and grasped that of his friend. "I've just been
to your house. Did you forget that I was to call around?"
"I didn't understand you to say, certainly, that you would call, or I
should have made it a point to be at home. But no matter. All in good
time. I'm on my way home now, and you will please return with me."
"I don't know about that," said Wilkinson, who could not forget his
promise to his wife. "I told Mary, when I went out, that I would only
be gone half an hour, and that time has expired already."
"Oh, never mind," returned the other, lightly. "She'll forgive you,
I'll be bound. Tell her that you came home, in all obedience to her
wishes, but that I met you at your own door, and carried you off in
spite of yourself."
And as Elbridge said this, he drew his arm within that of Wilkinson,
and the two men went chatting away.
Elbridge was fond of good wine, and always kept a few choice bottles on
hand. Wilkinson knew this; and, if he had looked narrowly into his
heart on the present occasion, he would have discovered that the wine
of his friend had for him a stronger attraction than his company.
As the latter had anticipated, wine and cigars were produced
immediately on their arrival at the house of Elbridge; and in the
exhilaration of the one and the fumes of the other, he soon forgot his
lonely, troubled wife and sick child at home.
A friend or two dropped in, in the course of half an hour; and then a
second bottle of wine was uncorked, and glasses refilled with its
sparkling contents.
The head of Wilkinson was not very strong. A single glass of wine
generally excited him, and two or three proved, always, more than he
could bear. It was so on this occasion; and when, at eleven o'clock, he
passed forth from the house of his friend, it was only by an effort
that he could walk steadily. The cool night air, as it breathed upon
his heated brow, partially sobered him, and his thoughts turned towards
his home. A sigh and the act of striking his hand upon his forehead
marked the effect of this transition of thought.
"Poor Mary! I didn't mean to stay away so late. I meant to return in
half an hour," he muttered, half aloud. "But this is always the way.
I'm afraid I've taken too much of Elbridge's wine; a little affects me.
I wonder if Mary will notice it; I wouldn't have her to do so for the
world. Poor child! it would frighten her to death. I rather think I'd
better try to walk off the effects of what I've been drinking. It's
late, any how, and fifteen or twenty minutes will make but little
difference either way."
As Wilkinson said this, he turned down a cross street which he happened
to be passing at the moment, and moved along with a quicker pace.
Gradually the confusion of his thoughts subsided.
"I wish I had remained at home," he sighed, as the image of his wife
arose distinctly in his mind. "Poor Mary! I broke my word with her,
though I promised so faithfully. Oh, dear! this weakness on my part is
terrible. Why was I so anxious to see Elbridge? there was no real
engagement, and yet I told Mary there was. I would not have her know of
this deception for the world. I forgot about dear little Ella's being
so sick; what if we should lose that little angel? Oh! I could not bear
it!"
Wilkinson stopped suddenly as this thought flashed over his mind. He
was soberer by far than when he left the house of Mr. Elbridge.
"I'll go home at once." He turned and began quickly retracing his
steps. And now he remembered the moving shadow on the wall, as he
stood, nearly three hours before, in front of his house, debating with
himself whether to enter or no. He heard too, in imagination, the
plaintive cries of his sick child, and the soothing melody of its
mother's voice as she sought to hush into sleep its unquiet spirit.