A Mad Marriage, May Agnes Fleming [best big ereader .TXT] 📗

who threw up his hand, and showed me the game

he had played at last.

 

“He had caught cold after a horrible fit of D. T., and I suppose his

devil’s race was run—typhoid fever supervened, and the gallant major

was going to die. Rosamond, with him still, nursed him faithfully and

devotedly, and tried with all her power to keep me from seeing him at

all.

 

“‘You can do no good, Gordon,’ she would plead; ‘keep away—don’t go

in. You may catch the fever. He wants no one but me.’

 

“The bare thought of my entering the sick room seemed a perpetual terror

to her. She would have no nurse, she would wait upon him herself, she

almost tried by force to keep me from seeing him. Off and on he was

delirious; as a rule he had his wits about him though, and would grin

like a satyr to the last.

 

“‘She’s afraid I’ll peach, Caryll,’ he whispered to me one day, with a

wink. ‘Blessed if I won’t, though. I never cared about her, and it

would be a shame, a cursed shame, to go off hooks, you know, and not

tell.’

 

“‘Not tell what?’ I asked, sternly.

 

“‘Never you mind, Gordon, my boy, you’ll hear it all fast enough. You

ain’t half a bad sort, hanged if you are, and I’m sorry—yes, I’m sorry

I did it. It was a devilish unhandsome trick for one gentleman to play

on another; but it was good fun at the time, that you’ll be forced to

admit yourself. Hush-h! here she comes, not a word to her. I’ll tell

you all by and by.’

 

“I was bewildered—half startled also; but I set it down to delirium.

She came in, looking with quick, apprehensive eyes from his face to

mine.

 

“‘Has he been talking?’ she asked.

 

“‘Nothing you would care to hear, Rosie, my girl,’ he cut in, with a

feeble chuckle; ‘not a word about you—ask him if you like.’

 

“I set it all down to delirium. ‘Whom the gods wish to destroy they

first make mad.’ My madness had lasted over four months—I was destined

to become sane again.

 

“The major sank lower and lower. His last hour was near. Rosamond never

left him when she could; she still strove with all her might to keep us

apart. I sometimes wonder now she did not hasten his end. She was quite

capable of it, I believe.

 

“One night I was to dine in the town. I had left the cottage and nearly

reached my destination. It was a stormy February night, the streets

white with drifting snow, a sleety wind blowing piercingly cold. Some

unaccountable depression had weighed upon me all day; my wife was

strangely changed of late; I could not understand her. The major was

very low, almost at his last. What if he died while I was absent,

Rosamond and the servant-maid all alone. I turned hastily back; I would

share my dear girl’s vigil, I thought—nay, I would compel her to go to

bed and to sleep; she was utterly worn out, and I would watch alone.

 

“I returned to the house, and entered softly. The maid-servant was alone

in the sick room. Miss Rosamond had fallen asleep at her post from sheer

weariness, and had been persuaded to go to her own room and lie down.

 

“‘You did quite right,’ I said; ‘I will share your watch. I don’t think

he will last out the night.’

 

“The sick man’s eyes opened—a cunning leer in them to the last.

 

“‘Don’t you, Gordon, my boy—don’t you think I’ll last out the night?

Then, by Jove! it’s time to make a clean breast of it. Where’s she? Your

wife?’

 

“‘Up-stairs in her own room, asleep.’

 

“‘That’s right. When the cat’s away the mice can play. Send that woman

back to the kitchen—I’ve a word or two for your private ear.’

 

“I obeyed. The woman went.

 

“‘Now lock the door, like a good fellow, and come here. Sit close, for

my wind’s almost gone, and I can’t jaw as I used. And I say! look here,

Caryll! no violence, you know. I’m an old man, and I’m dying, and I’m

sorry—yes, blessed if I ain’t—that I ever fooled you as I did. All the

reparation I can make, I will make—that’s fair, surely. Now, listen,

here, Caryll; this has been a put-up job from first to last. Rosamond’s

not my daughter!’

 

“‘Not your—’

 

“I sat staring at him aghast.

 

“‘Not my daughter—no, by George! My daughter, the one in Bermuda, you

know, is in Bermuda still, and a deuced hard-featured young woman—takes

after her mother, and wouldn’t touch her disreputable old dad with a

pair of tongs. No, Gordon, lad, the girl you’ve married isn’t my

daughter. I don’t know who’s daughter she is. She doesn’t know herself.

She’s your wife—worse luck; but she’s nothing to me.’

 

“I sat stunned, dumb, listening. If my life had depended on it, I could

not have spoken a word.

 

“‘I’ll tell you how it was, Caryll,’ the dying old reprobate went on.

‘Give us a drop of that catlap in the tumbler first. Thanks. It was in

New York I met her first—in New York, just a month before I brought her

here. Strolling down the Bowery one night I went into a concert-room, or

music-hall, of the lowest sort. Bowery roughs, with their hats on and

cigars in their mouths, were lying about the benches yelling for

“Rosamond” to come out and give them a song. Presently the wretched

orchestra began, the green baize drew up, and, in a gaudy, spangled

dress, a banjo in her hand, tawdry flowers in her hair, “Rosamond” came

bounding forward, smiling and kissing hands to her vociferous audience.

So I saw her for the first time—I swear it, Caryll—the girl you have

made your wife!’

 

“‘She sang song after song—you can imagine the highly-spiced sort of

songs likely to suit such an audience. They applauded her to the echo,

stamping, clapping, whistling, yelling with wild laughter and delight,

and all the while I sat, and stared, and wondered at her beauty. For

tawdry, and painted, and brazen as she was that night, her beauty, in

all places and at all times, is a thing beyond dispute. It was then,

sitting there and looking at her, that the plot came into my head, put

there by her guardian angel, the devil, no doubt. This is what it was:

 

“‘Take that girl off the stage, clothe her decently, drill her in her

part for a week or two—she’s a clever little baggage—take her back to

Toronto, and pass her off as your daughter. She’s got the beauty and

grace of a duchess, and there’s more than one soft-headed, soft-hearted

fool among the fellows there, who will go mad over her black eyes, and

be ready to marry her out of hand before she’s a month among them.

There’s that young chap, Caryll, for instance—oh, yes. Gordon, my boy,

I pitched upon you even then—he’s the heir to one of the finest

fortunes in the kingdom, and last man on earth likely to doubt or

investigate. The thing’s worth trying. Of course, when the fish is

hooked I come in for the lion’s share. Ecart�‘s not an unprofitable

amusement, but there may be better things in this wicked world even than

�cart�.

 

“‘It was a brilliant idea—even you must own that. I lost no time in

carrying it out. I hunted up Rosamond behind the scenes. Good Ged! such

scenes! and there and then had a long and fatherly talk with her. She

gave me her history frankly enough; she had no parents, no friends to

speak of, no relations. She never had had a father so far as she knew,

and her drunken drab of a mother had died two years before. She was

sixteen, and had made her debut a year before, under the friendly

auspices of a negro minstrel gentleman, who had taught her to strum the

banjo and play upon the piano.

 

“‘I said nothing of my plan that night. I slept upon it, and found it

rather strengthened than otherwise by that process. I hunted up Mlle.

Rosamond (in private life they called her Sally) next morning, in her

Bowery attic, and laid my plan before her. Gad, Caryll, how she jumped

at it! Her eyes glittered at the mention of the fine dresses and gay

jewelry—she had ambition beyond her sphere, had devoured a great deal

of unwholesome light literature, and was equal to anything. I found her

cleverer even than I had dared to hope—the girl had been more or less

educated at a public school, and could actually talk well. The negro

minstrel gentleman thrashed her when he got drunk; she was tired of her

life and Bohemian associates, to call them by no fouler name, of this

dirty Quartier Latin of New York, and eager and ready to go.

 

“‘What need to waste words, Caryll—the thing was an accomplished fact

in three weeks. The rest you know—“we came, we saw, we conquered,”

more’s the pity—for you. The little Bowery actress played her part

con amore—the pretty little yellow-eyed spider wove her web, and the

big, foolish fly walked headlong in at first sight. You married her!’

 

“He paused a moment, and motioned me to give him his cordial. The clammy

dew of death was upon his face already, his voice was husky and gasping,

but he was game to the end and would finish. I held the drink to his

lips in a stupid, dazed sort of way, far too stunned to realize what I

heard as yet.

 

“‘You married her, Gordon,’ he went on, ‘and—give the devil his due—I

believe she’s fond of you. That wasn’t in the bond, but she is, and her

efforts of late days to have me die and “make no sign” were worthy a

better cause. But I ain’t such an out-and-out bad ‘un as that,

Caryll—‘pon my word I ain’t; and then, money can’t do a man any good

when he’s going to die. So I’ve made a clean breast of it, my boy, and

you can do as you please. You’re awfully spoony on her, I know, and if

you like, why, say nothing about it; stick to her through thick and

thin. Other men have married girls like Rosie—and she’s fond of you, as

I say, poor little beggar, and you can take her to England and no one

will be the wiser. The fellows here won’t peach; they know it, Caryll;

the thing’s leaked out somehow, and—’

 

“He stopped. I had risen to my feet. I don’t know what he saw in my

face, but he held up both hands with a shrill cry of horror, not to kill

him. The next I remember, I was out in the black, storm-beaten street.

It was close upon midnight. At that hour and in that storm there was no

one abroad in Toronto. A wheel of fire seemed crashing through my brain,

some nameless, awful horror had fallen upon me. In a stupefied way I was

conscious of that—of no more. And then—all in an instant it seemed to

me the night had passed and the morning had broken. I had spent hours in

the freezing streets. With the morning light the mists of my brain

seemed to clear, and the full horror of this most horrible thing came

upon me—this unheard-of, shameless deed.

 

“The girl I had loved, had trusted, had married, was the vile thing he

made her out—the offcast of the New York streets. And the man who had

blindly loved her she