by T. S. Arthur
“You distress me beyond measure!” said Mrs. Anthony.
“My friend writes that three physicians are in attendance; and that they report her case as dangerous in the extreme. I did not intend going there until next week, but, unless my husband strongly objects, I will leave to-morrow. Good nursing is quite as essential as medical skill.”
“Go, by all means, if you can,” replied Mrs. Anthony. “Dear child! I shouldn’t wonder if that jealous husband of hers had done something to induce this attack. Brain fever don’t come on without mental excitement of some kind. I can’t bear him; and I believe, if the truth were known, it would be found that she hates the very sight of him. He’s a man made of money; and that’s saying the best that can be said. As to qualities of the mind and heart, she ranks, in everything, his superior. What a sacrifice of all that such a woman holds dear must have been made when she consented to become the wedded wife of Leon Dexter!”
Hendrickson heard no more, for a third party coming up at the moment, led to a change in the conversation. At the same instant Mrs. Arden and her daughter entered the room, and he arose and stepped forward to meet them.
“How pale you look, Mr. Hendrickson!” said Mrs. Arden, with concern. “Are you not well?”
“I have not felt as bright as usual, for some days,” he answered, trying to force a smile, but without success. “Your daughter has, no doubt, already informed you that I proved myself one of the dullest of travelling companions.”
“Oh, no,” Miss Arden spoke up quickly. “Ma knows that I gave you credit for being exceedingly agreeable. But, indeed, Mr. Hendrickson, you look ill.”
“I am slightly indisposed,” he answered, “and with your leave will retire to my room. I shall feel better after lying down.”
“Go by all means,” said Mrs. Arden.
Hendrickson bowed low, and, passing them, left the parlor almost hurriedly.
“Dangerously ill! A brain fever!” he said aloud, as he gained his own apartment and shut the door behind him. He was deeply disturbed. That their unexpected meeting had something to do with this sudden sickness he now felt sure. Her strong, though quickly controlled agitation he had seen; it was a revelation never to be forgotten; and showed the existence of a state of feeling in regard to her husband which must render her very existence a burden. That she was closely watched, he had seen, as well as heard. And it did not appear to him improbable, considering the spirit he had observed her display, that coincident with his departure from Newport, some jealous accusations had been made, half maddening her spirit, and stunning her brain with excitement.
“Angel in the keeping of a fiend!” he exclaimed, as imagination drew improbable scenes of persecution. “How my heart aches for you—yearns towards you—longs for the dear privilege of making all your paths smooth and fragrant; all your hours golden-winged; all your states peaceful! How precious you are to me! Precious as my own soul—dear counterpart! loving complement! Vain, as your own strife with yourself, has been my strife. The burden has been too heavy for us; the ordeal too fiery. My brain grows wild at thought of this terrible wrong.”
The image of Miss Arden flitted before him.
“Beautiful—loving—pure!” he said, “I might win you for my bride; but will not so wrong you as to offer a divided heart. All things forbid!”
Mr. Hendrickson did not leave his room that evening. At ten o’clock a servant knocked at his door. Mrs. Arden had sent her compliments, and desired to know if he were better than when he left her?
“Much better,” he answered; and the servant departed.
Midnight found him still in strife with himself. Now he walked the floor in visible agitation; and now sat motionless, with head bowed, and arms folded across his bosom. The impression of sleep was far from his overwrought brain. One thing he decided, and that was to leave Saratoga by the earliest morning train, and go with all possible haste to Newport. Suspense in regard to Mrs. Dexter he felt it would be impossible for him to bear.
“But what right have you to take all this interest in a woman who is another’s lawful wife?” he asked, in the effort to stem the tide of his feelings.
“I will not stop to debate questions of right,” so he answered within his own thoughts. “She is the wife of another, and I would die rather than stain her pure escutcheon with a thought of dishonor. I cease to love her when I imagine her capable of being false, in even the smallest act, to her marriage vows. But the right to love, Heaven gave me when my soul was created to make one with hers. I will keep myself pure that I may remain worthy of her.”
On the evening of the next day Hendrickson arrived at Newport. Almost the first man he encountered was Dexter.
“How is Mrs. Dexter?” he asked, forgetting in his anxiety and suspense the relation he bore to this man. His eager inquiry met a cold response accompanied by a scowl.
“I am not aware that you have any particular interest in Mrs. Dexter!”
And the angry husband turned from him abruptly.
“How unfortunate!” Hendrickson said to himself as he passed.
At the office he put the same inquiry.
“Very ill,” was the answer.
“Is she thought to be dangerous?”
“I believe so.”
Beyond this he gained no further intelligence from the clerk. A little while afterwards he saw Mrs. Florence in one of the parlors, and joined her immediately. From her he learned that Mrs. Dexter remained wholly unconscious, but that the physicians regarded her symptoms as favorable.
“Do they think her out of danger?” he asked, with more interest in his manner than he wished to betray.
“Yes.”
He could scarcely withhold an exclamation.
“What do you think, madam?” he inquired.
“I cannot see deeper than a physician,” she answered. “But my observation does not in anything gainsay the opinion which has been expressed. I am encouraged to hope for recovery.”
“Do you remain here any time?”
“I shall not leave until I see Mrs. Dexter on the safe side and in good hands,” was replied.
“Have you heard any reason assigned for this fearful attack?” inquired Hendrickson.
Mrs. Florence shook her head.
Not caring to manifest an interest in Mrs. Dexter that might attract attention, or occasion comment, Hendrickson dropped the subject. During the evening he threw himself in the way of the physician, and gathered all he desired to know from him. The report was so favorable that he determined to leave Newport by the midnight boat for New York and return home, which he accordingly did.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE season at Newport closed, and the summer birds of fashion flitted away. But Mrs. Dexter still remained, and in a feeble condition. It was as late as November before the physician in attendance would consent to her removal. She was then taken home, but so changed that even her nearest friends failed to recognize in her wan, sad, dreary face, anything of its old expression.
No man could have been kinder—no man could have lavished warmer attentions on another than were lavished on his wife by Mr. Dexter. With love-like assiduity, he sought to awaken her feelings to some interest in life; not tiring, though she remained as coldly passive as marble. But she gave him back no sign. There was neither self-will, perverseness, nor antagonism, in this; but paralysis instead. Emotion had died.
It was Christmas before Mrs. Dexter left her room—and then she was so weak as to need a supporting arm. Tonics only were administered by her physician; but if they acted at all, it was so feebly that scarcely any good result appeared. The cause of weakness lay far beyond the reach of his medicines.
With the slow return of bodily strength and mental activity, was developed in the mind of Mrs. Dexter a feeling of repugnance to her husband that went on increasing. She did not struggle against this feeling, because she knew, by instinct, that all resistance would be vain. It was something over which she could not possibly have control; the st
ern protest of nature against an alliance unblessed by love.
One day, during mid-winter, her best friend, Mrs. De Lisle, in making one of her usual visits, found her sitting alone, and in tears. It was the first sign of struggling emotion that she had yet seen, and she gladly recognized the tokens of returning life.
“Showers for the heart,” she said, almost smiling, as she kissed the pale invalid. “May the green grass and the sweet smiling violets soon appear.”
Mrs. Dexter did not reply, but with unusual signs of feeling, hid her face in the garments of her friend.
“How are you to-day?” asked Mrs. De Lisle, after she had given time for emotion to subside.
“About as usual,” was answered, and Mrs. Dexter looked with regaining calmness into her face.
“I have not seen you so disturbed for weeks,” said Mrs. De Lisle.
“I have not felt so wild a strife in my soul for months,” was answered. “Oh, that I could die! It was this prayer that unlocked the long closed fountain of tears.”
“With God are the issues of life,” said Mrs. De Lisle. “We must each of us wait His good time—patiently, hopefully, self-denyingly wait.”
“I know! I know!” replied Mrs. Dexter. “But I cannot look along the way that lies before me without a shudder. The path is too difficult.”
“You will surely receive strength.”
“I would rather die!” A slight convulsion ran through her frame.
“Don’t look into the future, dear young friend! Only to-day’s duties are required; and strength ever comes with the duty.”
“Not even God can give strength for mine,” said Mrs. Dexter, almost wildly.
“Hush! hush! the thought is impious!” Mrs. De Lisle spoke in warning tones.
“Not impious, but true. God did not lay these heavy burdens on me. My own hands placed them there. If I drag a pillar down upon myself, will God make my bones iron so that they shall not be broken? No, Mrs. De Lisle; there is only one hope for me, and that is in death; and I pray for it daily.”
“You state the case too strongly,” said Mrs. De Lisle. “God provides as well as provides. His providence determining what is best for us; and His providence counteracts our ignorance, self-will, or evil purposes, and saves us from the destruction we would blindly meet. He never permits any act in His creatures, for which He does not provide an agency that turns the evil that would follow into good. Your case is parallel to thousands. As a free woman, you took this most important step. God could not have prevented it without destroying that freedom which constitutes your individuality, and makes you a recipient of life from Him. But He can sustain you in the duties and trials you have assumed; and He will do it, if you permit Him to substitute His divine strength for your human weakness. In all trial, affliction, calamity, suffering, there is a germ of angelic life. It is through much tribulation that the Kingdom of Heaven is gained. Some spirits require intenser fires for purification than others; and yours may be of this genus. God is the refiner and the purifier; and He will not suffer any of the gold and silver to be lost. Dear friend! do not shrink away from the ordeal.”
“I am not strong enough yet.” It was all the reply Mrs. Dexter made. Her voice was mournful in the extreme.
“Wait for strength. As your day is, so shall it be.”
Mrs. Dexter shook her head.
“What more can I say?” Mrs. De Lisle spoke almost sadly, for she could not see that her earnestly spoken counsel had wrought any good effect.
“Nothing! nothing! dear friend!” answered Mrs. Dexter, still very mournfully.
A little while she was silent; and seemed in debate with herself. At length she said—
“Dear Mrs. De Lisle! To you I have unveiled my heart more than to any other human being. And I am constrained to draw the veil a little farther aside. To speak will give relief; and as you are wiser, help may come. At Saratoga, I confided to you something on that most delicate of all subjects, my feelings towards my husband. I have yet more to say! Shall I go farther in these painful, almost forbidden revelations?”
“Say on,” was the answer, “I shall listen with no vain curiosity.”
“I am conscious,” Mrs. Dexter began, “of a new feeling towards my husband. I call it new, for, if only the fuller development of an old impression, it has all the vividness of a new-born emotion. Before my illness, I saw many things in him to which I could attach myself; and I was successful, in a great measure, in depressing what was repellant, and in magnifying the attractive. But now I seem to have been gifted with a faculty of sight that enables me to look through the surface as if it were only transparent glass; and I see qualities, dispositions, affections, and tendencies, against which all my soul revolts. I do not say that they are evil; but they are all of the earth earthy. Nor do I claim to be purer and better than he is—only so different, that I prefer death to union. It is in vain to struggle against my feelings, and I have ceased to struggle.”
“You are still weak in body and mind,” answered Mrs. De Lisle. “All the pulses of returning life are feeble. Do not attempt this struggle now.”
“It must be now, or never,” was returned. “The current is bearing me away. A little while, and the most agonizing strife with wave and tempest will prove of no avail.”
“Look aloft, dear friend! Look aloft!” said Mrs. De Lisle. “Do not listen to the maddening dash of waters below, nor gaze at the shuddering bark; but upwards, upwards, through cloud-rifts, into heaven!”
“I have tried to look upwards—I have looked upwards—but the sight of heaven only makes earth more terrible by contrast.”
“Who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb?” asked Mrs. De Lisle, in a deep, earnest voice. A pause, and then—”They who have come up through great tribulation! Think of this, dear friend. Heaven may be beautiful in your eyes, but the way to heaven is by earthly paths. You cannot get there, except by the way of duty; and your duty is not to turn away from, but to your husband, in the fulfillment of your marriage vows—to the letter. I say nothing of the spirit, but the letter of this law you must keep. Mr. Dexter is not an evil-minded man. He is a good citizen, and desires to be a good husband. His life, to the world, is irreproachable. The want of harmony in taste, feeling and character, is no reason for disseverance. You cannot leave him, and be guiltless in the eyes of God or man.”
“I did not speak of leaving him,” said Mrs. Dexter, looking up strangely into the face of Mrs. De Lisle.
“But you have thought of it,” was answered. A flush dyed the pale face of Mrs. Dexter. “Oh, my friend, beware of evil counsellors! Mrs. Anthony”—
“Has never looked into my heart. It is shut and fastened with clasps of iron when she is near,” returned Mrs. Dexter.
“The presence of such a woman suggests rebellion,” said Mrs. De Lisle; “her thoughts are communicated by another way than speech. Is it not so?”
“Perhaps it is. I feel the spirit of antagonism rising whenever I am with her. I grow restive—impatient of these bonds—indignant towards my husband; though the subject is never mentioned.”
“Be on your guard against her, my young friend. Her principles are not religiously sound. This I say to you, because duty requires me to say it. Placed in your position, and with your feelings towards her husband, if no personal and selfish consideration came in to restrain her, she would not hesitate at separation—nay, I fear, not even at a guilty compact with another.”
“You shock me!” said Mrs. Dexter.
“I speak to you my real sentiments; and in warning. In your present state of mind, be very reserved towards her. You are not strong enough to meet her quick intelligence, nor able to guard yourself against her subtle insinuations. When was she here last?”
A sudden thought prompted the question.
“She left just before you came in,” answered Mrs. Dexter.
“And your mind has been disturbed, not tranquillized, by her visit?”
“I
am disturbed, as you see.”
“On what subject did she speak?” asked Mrs. De Lisle.
“You know her usual theme?”
“Inharmonious marriages?”
“Yes.”
“I do not wonder that you were disturbed. How could it be otherwise?”
“She gives utterance to many truths,” said Mrs. Dexter.
“But even truth may be so spoken as to have all the evil effect of error,” was promptly answered.
“Can truth ever do harm? Is it not the mind’s light? Truth shows us the way in which we may walk safely,” said Mrs. Dexter, with some earnestness of manner.
“Light, by which the eye sees, will become a minister of destruction, if the eye is inflamed. A mind diseased cannot bear strong gleams of truth. They will blind and deceive, rather than illustrate. The rays must be softened. Of the many truths to which Mrs. Anthony gave utterance this morning, which most affected your mind?”
“She spoke,” said Mrs. Dexter, after a little reflection, “of natural affinities and repulsions, which take on sometimes the extreme condition of idiosyncrasies. Of conjunctions of soul in true marriages, and of disjunction and disgust where no true marriage exists.”
“Did she explain what she understood by a true marriage?” asked Mrs. De Lisle.
“I do not remember any formal explanation. But her meaning was obvious.”
“What, then, did she mean?”
A little while Mrs. Dexter thought, and then answered—
“She thinks that men and women are born partners, and that only they who are fortunate enough to meet are ever happy in marriage—are, in fact, really married.”
“How is a woman to know that she is rightly mated?” asked Mrs. De Lisle.
“By the law of affinities. The instincts of our nature are never at fault.”
“So the thief who steals your watch will say the instincts of his nature all prompted to the act. If our lives were orderly as in the beginning, Mrs. Dexter, we might safely follow the soul’s unerring instincts. But, unfortunately, this is not the case; and instinct needs the law of revelation and the law of reason for its guide.”