by T. S. Arthur
So far as Mrs. Dexter was concerned, the heavy curtain that fell so suddenly between her and the world was not drawn aside—not uplifted—even for a moment. Her deep seclusion of herself was nun-like. Gradually new objects of interest—new causes of excitement—pressed the thought of her aside, and her name grew a less and less familiar sound in fashionable and family circles. Some thought of her as a wronged woman—some as a guilty woman—yet all with a degree of sympathy.
A year Mr. Dexter waited for some sign from his wife. But if the grave had closed over her, the isolation from him could not have been more perfect. He then sold his house, removed to a hotel, and made preparations for an absence in Europe of indefinite continuance. He went, and was gone for over two years.—Returned, and almost immediately on his arrival, took legal steps for procuring a divorce. Mrs. Dexter received due notice of these proceedings, based simply on her abandonment of her husband, and refusal to live with him as a wife. But she remained entirely passive. The proceedings went on, and in due time Mr. Dexter obtained what he sought, a divorce. Within a month after the decree in his favor, he returned across the Atlantic.
The publication of this decree awakened a brief interest in Mrs. Dexter—or rather in plain Jessie Loring, as she was now in legal aspect. But the curious public were not able to acquire any satisfactory information in regard to her. The world in which she lived was a terra incognita to them.
The next exciting news which came in this connection, was the announcement of Dexter’s marriage with an English heiress. He did not return with her to the United States; but remained in England, where he established a foreign branch of the mercantile house in which he was a partner, and took up his permanent residence beyond the sea.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Six years from the day Jessie Loring laid her bleeding heart on the marriage altar had passed. For over three years of that time she had not stepped beyond the threshold of her aunt’s dwelling, and only at rare intervals was she seen by visitors. She had not led an idle life, however; else would her days long ere this have been numbered. To her aunt and cousins she had, from the day of her return, devoted herself, in all things wherein she could aid, counsel, minister, or sustain; and that with so much of patient cheerfulness, and loving self-devotion, that she had become endeared to them beyond any former attachment. There was an odor of goodness about her life that made her presence an incentive to right action.
Long before this period, Mrs. Loring had ceased all efforts to lead Jessie out of her self-imposed seclusion.
“Not yet, dear aunt! Not yet,” was the invariable answer.
The day on which she received formal notice that her husband had applied for a divorce, she shut herself up in her room, and did not leave it, nor hold communion with any one, until the next morning. Then, with the exception of a wearied look, as if she had not slept well, and a shade of sadness about her lips, no change was discernible. When the decree, annulling the marriage between her and Dexter, was placed in her hands, she seemed bewildered for a time, as if she found it almost impossible to realize her new position.
“I congratulate you, Jessie Loring!” said her aunt, speaking from her external view of the case. “You are free again. Free as the wind!”
“This does not place me where I was,” Jessie replied.
“Why not? The law has cancelled your marriage!” said Mrs. Loring. “You stand in your old relation to the world.”
“But not to myself,” Jessie answered with a deep sigh; and leaving her aunt, she went away to her little chamber, there to sit in solemn debate over this new aspect of affairs in her troubled life.
No—no. She did not stand in her old relation to herself. She was not a maiden with lips free from the guile of a false marriage promise; but a divorced wife. A thing questionably recognized, both in human opinion and divine law. Deeply and solemnly did this conviction weigh upon her thoughts. View the case in any of the lights which shone into her mind, she could not discover an aspect that gave her real comfort. It is true she was free from all legal obligations to her former husband, and that was something gained. But what of that husband’s position under the literal reading of the divine law? No doubt he contemplated marriage. But could he marry, conscience clear? Had not her false vows cursed both their lives?—imposed on each almost impossible necessities?
Such were the questions that thrust themselves upon her, and clamored for solution.
She had not solved them when the intelligence came of Mr. Dexter’s marriage in England.
“I have news that will surprise you,” said Mrs. Loring, coming into the sitting-room where Jessie was at work on a piece of embroidery.
“What is it?” she asked, looking up almost with a start, for something in her aunt’s manner told her that she had a personal interest in the news.
“Mr. Dexter is married!”
Instantly a pallor overspread Jessie’s face.
“Married to an English lady,” said Mrs. Loring.
Jessie looked at her aunt for a little while, but without a remark. She then turned her eyes again upon her embroidery, lifting it close to her face. But her hand trembled so that she could not take a stitch.
“I hope he’s satisfied now,” said Mrs. Loring. “He’s married an heiress—so the story goes; and is going to reside with her in England. I’m glad of that any how. It might not be so pleasant for you to meet them—sensitive thing that you are! But it wouldn’t trouble me. I could look them both in the face and not blink. Much joy may he have with his English bride! Bless me, child, how you do tremble!” she added, as she noticed the fingers of her niece trying in vain to direct the needle she held upon the face of the embroidery. “It’s nothing more than you had to expect. And, besides, what is Leon Dexter to you now? Only as another man?”
Jessie arose without speaking, and kissing her aunt in token of love, passed quickly from the room.
“Dear! dear! what a strange child it is!” said Aunt Loring, as she wiped off a tear which had fallen from Jessie’s eyes upon her cheek. “Just like her mother for all the world in some things”—the last part of the sentence was in a qualifying tone—”though,” she went on, “her mother hadn’t anything like her trials to endure. Oh, that Dexter! if I only had my will of him!”
And Aunt Loring, in her rising indignation, actually clenched her hand and shook it in the air.
“It has come to this at last,” said Jessie as soon as she had gained the sanctuary of her little chamber, where she could think without interruption. “And I knew it must come; but oh, how I have dreaded the event! Is he innocent in the sight of heaven? Ah, if I could only have that question answered in the affirmative, a crushing weight would be lifted from my soul. If he is not innocent, the stain of his guilt rests upon my garments! He is not alone responsible. Who can tell the consequences of a single false step in life?”
From a small hanging shelf she took a Bible, and opening to a marked page, read over three or four verses with earnest attention.
“I can see no other meaning,” she said with a painful sigh, closing the book and restoring it to its place on the shelf. It was all in vain that Jessie Loring sought for light and comfort in this direction. They were not found. When she joined her aunt, some hours afterwards, her face had not regained its former placidity.
“Well, dear,” said Mrs. Loring, speaking in what sounded to the ear of her niece a light tone, “have you got it all right with yourself?”
Jessie smiled faintly, and merely answered—
“It will take time. But I trust that all will come out truly adjusted in the end.”
She had never ventured to bring to her aunt’s very external judgment the real questions that troubled her. Mrs. Loring’s prompt way of sweeping aside these cobwebs of the brain, as she called the finer scruples of conscience, could not satisfy her yearning desire for light.
“Yes; time works wonders. He is the great restorer. But why not see clearly at once; and not wait in suffering for time’s
slow movements? I am a wiser philosopher than you are, Jessie; and try to gain from the present all that it has to give.”
“Some hearts require a severer discipline than others,” said Jessie. “And mine, I think, is one of them.”
“All that is sickly sentiment, my dear child! as I have said to you a hundred times. It is not shadow, but sunshine that your heart wants—not discipline, but consolation—not doubt, but hope. You are as untrue to yourself as the old anchorites. These self-inflicted stripes are horrible to think of, for the pain is not salutary, but only increases the morbid states of mind that ever demand new flagellations.”
“We are differently made, Aunt Phoebe,” was the quiet answer.
“No, we are not, but we make ourselves different,” replied Mrs. Loring a little hastily.
“The world would be a very dead-level affair, if we were all made alike,” said Jessie, forcing a smile, and assuming a lighter air, in order to lead her aunt’s mind away from the thought of her as too painfully disturbed by the announcement of Mr. Dexter’s marriage. And she was successful. The subject was changed to one of a less embarrassing character. And this was all of the inner life of Jessie Loring that showed itself on the surface.
CHAPTER XXV.
AND what of Paul Hendrickson during these years of isolation, in which no intelligence could be gained of Jessie, beyond vague rumors? For a time, he secluded himself. Then he returned to a few of the old social circles, not much changed to the common eye. His countenance was a little graver; his voice a little lower; his manner a trifle more subdued. But he was a cheerful, intelligent companion, and always a welcome guest.
To no one, not even to his old friend, Mrs. Denison, did he speak of Mrs. Dexter. What right had he to speak of her? She was still the lawful wife of another man, though separated from him by her own act. But not to think of her was as impossible as not to think at all—not to gaze upon her image as impossible as to extinguish the inner vision. She was always by his side, in spirit; her voice always in his ears; her dear face always before him. “The cup is dashed to pieces at my feet, and the precious wine spilled!” How many, many, many times, each day, did he hear these words uttered, always in that sad, half-desponding voice that first brought them to his ears; and they kept hope in the future alive.
The separation which had taken place Hendrickson regarded as one step in the right direction. When the application for a divorce was made, he hailed it with a degree of inward satisfaction that a little startled himself. “It is another step in the right direction,” he said, on the instant’s impulse.
Reflection a little sobered him. “Even if the divorce is granted, what will be her views of the matter?”
There came no satisfactory answer to this query.
A thick curtain still veiled the future. Many doubts troubled him.
Next, in the order of events, came the decision by which the marriage contract between Dexter and his wife was annulled. On the evening of the same day on which the court granted the petitioner’s prayer, Hendrickson called upon Mrs. Denison. She saw the moment he came in that he was excited about something.
“Have you heard the news?” he inquired.
“What news?” Mrs. Denison looked at him curiously.
“Leon Dexter has obtained a divorce.”
“Has he?”
“Yes. And so that long agony is over! She is free again.”
Hendrickson was not able to control the intense excitement he felt.
Mrs. Denison looked at him soberly and with glances of inquiry.
“You understand me, I suppose?”
“Perhaps I do, perhaps not,” she answered.
“Mrs. Denison,” said the young man, with increasing excitement, “I need scarcely say to you that my heart has never swerved from its first idolatry. To love Jessie Loring was an instinct of my nature—therefore, to love her once was to love her forever. You know how cruelly circumstances came with their impassable barriers. They were only barriers, and destroyed nothing. As brightly as ever burned the fires—as ardently as ever went forth love’s strong impulses with every heart-beat. And her heart remained true to mine as ever was needle to the pole.”
“That is a bold assertion, Paul,” said Mrs. Denison, “and one that it pains me to hear you make.”
“It is true; but why does it give you pain?” he asked.
“Because it intimates the existence of an understanding between you and Mrs. Dexter, and looks to the confirmation of rumors that I have always considered as without a shadow of foundation.”
“My name has never been mentioned in connection with hers.”
“It has.”
“Mrs. Denison!”
“It is true.”
“I never heard it.”
“Nor I but once.”
“What was said?”
“That you were the individual against whom Mr. Dexter’s jealousy was excited, and that your clandestine meetings with his wife led to the separation.”
“I had believed,” said Hendrickson, after a pause, and in a voice that showed a depression of feeling, “that busy rumor had never joined our names together. That it has done so, I deeply regret. No voluntary action of mine led to this result; and it was my opinion that Dexter had carefully avoided any mention of my name, even to his most intimate friends.”
“I only heard the story once, and then gave it my emphatic denial,” said Mrs. Denison.
“And yet it was true, I believe, though in a qualified sense. We did meet, not clandestinely, however, nor with design.”
“But without a thought, much less a purpose of dishonor,” said Mrs. Denison, almost severely.
“Without even a thought of dishonor,” replied Hendrickson. “Both were incapable of that. She arrived at Newport when I was there. We met, suddenly and unexpectedly, face to face, and when off our guard. I read her heart, and she read mine, in lightning glimpses. The pages were shut instantly, and not opened again. We met once or twice after that, but as mere acquaintances, and I left on the day after she came, because I saw that the discipline was too severe for her, and that I was not only in an equivocal, but dangerous, if not dishonorable position. Dexter had his eyes on me all the while, and if I crossed his path suddenly he looked as if he would have destroyed me with a glance. The fearful illness, which came so near extinguishing the life of Mrs. Dexter, was, I have never doubted, in consequence of that meeting and circumstances springing directly therefrom. A friend of mine had a room adjoining theirs at Newport, and he once said to me, without imagining my interest in the case, that on the day before Mrs. Dexter’s illness was known, he had heard her voice pitched to a higher key than usual, and had caught a few words that too clearly indicated a feeling of outrage for some perpetrated wrong. There was stern defiance also, he said, in her tones. He was pained at the circumstance, for he had met Mrs. Dexter frequently, he said, at Newport, and was charmed with her fine intelligence and womanly attractions.
“Once after that we looked into each other’s faces, and only once. And then, as before, we read the secret known only to ourselves—but without design. I was passing her residence—it was the first time I had permitted myself even to go into the neighborhood where she lived, since her return from Newport. Now something drew me that way, and yielding to the impulse, I took the street on which her dwelling stood, and ere a thought of honor checked my footsteps, was by her door. A single glance at one of the parlor windows gave me the vision of her pale face, so attenuated by sickness and suffering, that the sight filled me with instant pity, and fired my soul with a deeper love. What my countenance expressed I do not know. It must have betrayed my feelings, for I was off my guard. Her face was as the page of a book suddenly opened. I read it without losing the meaning of a word. There was a painful sequel to this. The husband of Mrs. Dexter, as if he had started from the ground, confronted me on the instant. Which way he came—whether he had followed me, or advanced by an opposite direction, I know not. But there he stood
, and his flashing eyes read both of our unveiled faces. The expression of his countenance was almost fiendish.
“I passed on, without pause or start. Nothing more than the answering glances he had seen was betrayed. But the consequences were final. It was on that day that Mrs. Dexter left her husband, never again to hold with him any communication. I have scarcely dared permit myself to imagine what transpired on that occasion. The outrage on his part must have been extreme, or the desperate alternative of abandonment would never have been taken by such a woman.
“There, my good friend and aforetime counsellor,” added Hendrickson, “you have the unvarnished story. A stern necessity drew around each of us bands of iron. Yet we have been true to ourselves—and that means true to honor. But now the darker features of the case are changed. She is no longer the wife of Leon Dexter. The law has shattered every link of the accursed chain that held her in such a loathsome bondage.”
He paused, for the expression of Mrs. Denison’s countenance was not by any means satisfactory.
“Right, so far,” said Mrs. Denison. “I cannot see that either was guilty of wrong, or even, imprudence. But I am afraid, Paul, that you are springing to conclusions with too bold a leap.”
“Do not say that, Mrs. Denison.”
He spoke quickly, and with a suddenly shadowed face.
“Your meaning is very plain,” was answered. “It is this. A divorce having been granted to the prayer of Mr. Dexter, his wife is now free to marry again.”
“Yes, that is my meaning,” said Hendrickson, looking steadily into the face of Mrs. Denison. She merely shook her head in a grave, quiet way.
Hendrickson drew a long breath, then compressed his lips—but still looked into the face of his friend.
“There are impediments yet in the way,” said Mrs. Denison.
“I know what you think. The Divine law is superior to all human enactments.”
“Is it not so, Paul?”
“If I was certain as to the Divine law,” said Hendrickson.