Chapter XLV: The Woman’s Dearest Right

And thou shalt know, these arms once curled
About thee, what we knew before,
How LOVE is the greatest good in the world.
Henceforth be loved, as heart can love,
Or brain devise, or hand approve.—BROWNING.

The morning of the next day found Justin and Britomarte seated together on a sofa in the drawing-room.

“Well, my dearest,” began Justin, in a low tone, as he took her hand and tried to catch her eye, “is Britomarte prepared to ratify in Justin’s favor the promise made by Wing to his wounded colonel?”

“Yes,” she answered frankly, “for it was a promise given unconditionally and for all time.”

“And how soon shall it be redeemed, Britomarte?”

“As soon as you please—after you have heard something that I have to tell you. Justin, you have heard a ‘secret’ in my family history darkly hinted?”

“Yes; and I have heard you plainly assert that such a secret existed. And I have told you that let it be what it might, it _could_ not affect my love and esteem for you, or my earnest desire to make you my wife.”

“Thanks, warmest thanks for your generous trust in me, Justin. The secret indeed was none of mine; nor has it turned out to be so dark an one as I had dreaded. Fortunately it cannot affect us in any manner. But you shall hear it, if only that you may know how it was that I grew up to be a man-hater!”

“I always supposed that there must have been some deep wrong and suffering at the bottom of all your man-hatred.”

“A long succession of wrongs and sufferings! But you shall hear,” she said. “There really would seem to have been a spell laid upon the women of our race; for as far back as we can follow household history, every woman of our blood, from mother to daughter, has married miserably.”

“I hope that _your_ marriage will break the spell, Britomarte.”

“I _know_ that it will, dear Justin. But this curse really followed or seemed to follow us from generation to generation.”

“And is there no tradition connected with it?” smiled Justin.

“None. Why?”

“Because there ought to be, you know. I am afraid your family are not inventive, Miss Conyers. For this is just such a case as requires a tradition to explain it. And such a tradition could be so easily invented, to tell us what ancestress, by what crime, entailed the curse upon all her female descendants. For instance, the tale might run—How in the dark ages a certain fair nun of your race broke her vows of celibacy in favor of a certain gay knight, and in becoming his wife, by that law of retribution which visits the sins of the parents upon the children, entailed upon all her daughters to the end of time the punishment of misery in marriage. You are sure there is no such legend?”

“Quite,” said Britomarte, smiling. “And for the want of such a legend in explanation of the mystery, I was obliged to seek the solution of the problem in the inherent wickedness of men. When you hear the rest of my story you will see how I found it there.”

“I can even now see that, Britomarte.”

“You will excuse me from speaking of my grandfather and my father, though I remember both perfectly well.”

“Certainly, dearest, I understand. Whatever a man’s faults may be, it is not for his descendants to discover them to others.”

“No. But nothing shall prevent my speaking of my brother-in-law. I had one only sister—the daughter of my mother’s first marriage, for my mother was married twice. This sister was sixteen years old and I was four when our parents died and we were left to the care of a grand-aunt.”

“Miss Pole?”

“Yes; but she lived in Washington city then, and saw a great deal of company, and kept open house. My half sister was wealthy, having inherited her father’s fortune, which was secured to her; I was perfectly penniless, for _my_ father had unfortunately run through every cent of my mother’s little property. While my sister lived single I never knew a want. But she married—married miserably, like all her foremothers had done. Her husband was the celebrated tenor, Adriano di Bercelloni. She heard him sing at an opera, fell in love with him, became mad, blind, desperate, threw herself in his way, went everywhere she could see him, and finally attracted his attention. Mona was very beautiful as well as very wealthy, and very much in love with the fascinating tenor. The bait was tempting, the opportunity good, and so the spendthrift opera singer ran away with the rich heiress.”

“Poor, infatuated girl!”

“Oh, she did but follow her fate, as all her predecessors had done before her. But the rage of Aunt Pole was beyond all description. Justin, I have seen something of war, but I have never seen anything so terrible, so horrible as that old lady’s roused wrath!”

“I can well believe it. I have seen her once,” thought Justin to himself.

“She stormed and raved and foamed. She forbade me, on pain of her everlasting vengeance, ever to see, speak of, or _think_ about my sister. I think the root of her bitterness grew in this fact—that she had to leave her handsome city house, which really belonged to Mona, and to break up her showy establishment, which she could no longer support on Mona’s ample fortune. She sent me to school at Bellemont, and she returned to Witch Elms, breathing maledictions upon all the world.”

“So that was the secret of her misanthropy.”

“Yes.”

“Go on, dear Britomarte.”

“I went to school, but I could not obey my aunt in regard to my sister. I loved Mona; I had no one but her to love, and all the affections of my heart were concentrated upon her, I _could_ not refrain from writing to her. I knew that Bercelloni was singing in Paris. I wrote to my sister, enclosing my letter to him. In that manner a correspondence was commenced between my sister and myself, which was kept up until her death.”

“She is dead, then?” said Justin, gently.

“She has been dead five years. I will tell you all about that presently. In a very short time Bercelloni contrived to run through all my sister’s fortune, wasting it upon wine, dice, and other abominations. And then he left her.”

“The base villain!”

“He did but carry out the curse, as all his predecessors had done before him. For more than a year I had not heard from my poor sister, when one day, while still at school, I got a letter from her, postmarked New York—a letter telling me that Bercelloni had left her, that at the time of his marriage with herself he had another wife living, although of course she had not suspected it—telling me also that she was in great destitution, that her three children were all ill with diphtheria, and that she had no money to buy them food or physic, and asking me, for Heaven’s sake, to send her something, to keep her little ones from dying of want.”

“Oh, my dear, what a sad trial for your young heart to bear.”

“No,” said Britomarte, “it was only the family fate. But oh, where was I to get money? I had not a dollar in my purse; I had no jewelry or trinkets such as girls usually have; I had not even a watch; I had only a little gold thimble, the birth-day gift of my sister years before. It had cost six dollars. I sold it for two to a schoolmate. I also sold all my clothing, piece by piece, to the colored people of the neighborhood, so that I had but a single change left. I had to do all this secretly, and at the risk of discovery and expulsion from the school. But by the sacrifice of effects worth perhaps sixty dollars I realized about twenty, which I sent to poor Mona.”

“Ah, Britomarte! To have had the heaviest burdens of life forced upon you when you were a mere school girl!”

“It was the family curse. The women, like the mules, had to bear all the burdens, and like the scapegoats, had to carry all the crimes of the men.”

“That is all past now, Britomarte—forever past. You shall bear no burden, suffer no sorrow that I can intercept and take from you.”

“I know it, Justin. I know it. God make me worthy of you, and grateful for your love.”

“Hush, hush, my dearest. No more of that. Go on with your domestic history. What came next?”

“What came next? Ah, Justin, the money I sent poor Mona only helped to bury her children. They all died. Meanwhile, she found a friend in the widow of the elder Bercelloni. This poor woman had been the second wife of the father, and was therefore only the step-mother of the son. She was entirely dependent on her own exertions for a livelihood, for her selfish step-son would do nothing for her. But the Signora kept poor Mona from starving, and after a while procured her an engagement at the same opera house where she herself was employed as chorus singer. But I weary you with these petty family details.”

“No, no, not in the least. All that in the slightest degree concerns you interests me. Go on, pray.”

“I heard but little of my sister for the next twelve months. Meanwhile—But how is it that secrets transpire, Justin—do you know? And above all, how is it that family secrets always come out in an exaggerated form and distorted shape? Can any one tell?”

“Not _I_, at all events,” said Justin, smiling.

“My sister’s story transpired, but in a monstrous form. There was sin and folly, it was whispered, but the folly and the sin were hers, it was said. Suspicion fell even on me, of I know not what fault. Ah, you know the poisonous malaria of slander that hung like a pestilential cloud over me.”

“I know! I know! But it has cleared away, my dear—cleared away, and left your sky all bright and sunny.”

“For a year or more, being my last year at school, I lived in this deadly atmosphere. Then came the school examination. You remember all that happened there?”

“I remember one thing that happened there distinctly. I met you. And for the first time, and for the whole of my life, I loved. But proceed, my dearest.”

“Do you remember while we were on the boat, waiting for her to get up her steam, that a negro boy came running down from the schoolhouse, and jumped aboard and handed me a letter?”

“That letter! Yes, and I remember your excessive agitation, your retirement to your cabin, your isolation all that day and night, and the awful sorrow on your brow next morning. I remember all, Britomarte.”

“That letter was from the Signora Adriana di Bercelloni. It announced to me the news of my sister’s awful death. She was found one morning dead in her bed, with her throat cut from ear to ear, and lying in a pool of her own blood!”

“Great Heavens, Britomarte!”

Britomarte covered her face with her hands, and remained silent for a few moments. Then she looked up and said:

“Do you wonder now at my strange demeanor on that occasion? You remember that on my arrival at Washington, instead of going to Witch Elms, I hastened immediately to the station to catch the train for New York?”

“Yes.”

“I reached the city the next day, and hurried to the humble lodgings of the Signora and got her to accompany me to the house of my dead sister, where the coroner’s inquest was still sitting. There we found the Signor Adriano di Bercelloni under arrest and under strong suspicion. There, partly from the information given me by the Signora, and partly from the evidence elicited by the coroner’s inquest, I learned these facts: That my sister had recovered her health and beauty; and had made considerable progress in her art and in the favor of the public, so that at the time of her death she was one of the most attractive singers in the house. Bercelloni came to fulfil an engagement there that summer, and to his amazement found Mona a member of the company and restored to all her pristine bloom and beauty, and indeed more lovely and alluring than he had ever known her to be.”

“Sorrow does sometimes give a last, perfecting touch to beauty,” said Justin.

“Yes. Bercelloni seemed always to have loved my sister by fits and starts. Now he took a violent fancy to her; a fancy that was stimulated by jealousy into a keen vitality. But while she was very gracious to every other member of the troupe, she would not vouchsafe a word or a look to the man who had so basely deceived and deserted her.”

“She was right. Her course was the only correct one.”

“Yes, but it maddened him. He fiercely claimed her as his wife, haughtily asserted a husband’s rights over her, and absolutely forbade the manager of the Opera House to pay her salary to herself! He told _her_ that the story of his having had another wife was a mere canard; that there was no truth whatever in it; that he had only invented the tale to tease her.”

“The monstrous villain! Who could believe him?”

“Not she, at all events. She denied his statements, ignored his claims, and defied his anger. He become furiously, frantically jealous. And such was the state of affairs between them, when one morning she was found dead in her bed, and weltering in her blood, as I said. The coroner’s inquest, with the usual perspicacity of such bodies, found their verdict, ‘Suicide.’ And as ‘a melancholy case of suicide’ it was recorded in the daily papers.”

“Oh, Britomarte! to think that you should have had this great sorrow and we who loved you should have known nothing of it! Why, it is even probable that I may have read that very paragraph describing the ‘melancholy case of suicide,’ without the slightest suspicion that it was in the least degree connected with your life. But tell me, how in the name of justice and common sense did Bercelloni get off so easily?”

“Oh, he proved an alibi by half a dozen witnesses.”

“Then after all he did not commit the crime.”

“Yes he did, but by another hand. He was just the sort of Italian villain to hire a low ruffian to do the deed he feared to attempt. And that was the way in which he managed it. Listen, Justin: At the time that I came down to Washington on my way to the Rainbows, I went over to Witch Elms to see my old aunt, to explain to her why I went to New York so suddenly, and to ask her why she had not answered my letter in which I had broken to her the news of Mona’s awful death. When I reached Witch Elms the very first person whom I saw, the man who opened the door for me, was—Dole, the confidential servant of Bercelloni. His sudden appearance nearly deprived me of my breath. I could not understand why _he_, of all men should be _there_, of all places. But he took my message to the old lady, and while he was gone I went to the kitchen and asked the old cook, Nan, how this man came to be there, and in what capacity he served. She told me that her mistress had advertised for an overseer for her farm, and that Dole had answered her advertisement, and had offered himself and had been accepted; and moreover, that he had already obtained a great influence over her mistress.”

“Was this person you speak of a very large man with a very small head, closely cropped hair and closely shaven face?”

“Yes; why?”

“I saw him one night when I rode out to Witch Elms, to inquire for you, that is all! go on, dearest.”

“Old Nan had scarcely finished her account of Mr. Dole, when that gentleman returned to me with the information that my aunt would not see me, and with my unopened letter in his hand.”

“What a strange old soul!”

“Well, Justin, I will not weary you with the repetition of all my attempts to see my old relation. They were quite fruitless. She knew that my sister was dead, and how she had died. She knew all that from the public papers, but that did not melt her. She remained obdurate to the last. Patience, dear Justin! my long, dark story is almost at an end. I am about to give you the sequel of all this.”

“Go on, my dearest Britomarte, and believe that I am listening with the deepest interest and closest attention.”

“I pass on to the week of her death. I was here at the Parsonage helping to nurse your sister at that time, you remember?”

“Certainly.”

“The doctor came one morning and announced to me the death of my aunt, and placed a packet in my hand. It consisted of a half dozen newspapers, with certain passages marked in them. These passages related to the arrest, trial and execution of a guerrilla named Norse, alias Dipper, alias DOLE. It was stated that he had confessed to having committed nine highway robberies, seventeen successful burglaries, and five murders. With these papers there was a written manuscript and a note. The note was from the chaplain of the prison in which he was confined. It was addressed to Miss Pole. It explained that the accompanying manuscript was the attested confession of the prisoner. Justin, I have that document by me; would you like to look at it?”

“Not now, dearest; I would rather you would tell me its contents. What did the dying culprit confess?”

“First to having murdered ‘Madame Mona’ as my sister was called, for the sum of a thousand dollars, paid him for the service by the Signor Adriano di Bercelloni.”

“Horrible!”

“Then to various other offences which would have seemed like felonies, except by the side of that one enormous crime.”

“You left the Parsonage soon after the receipt of that packet.”

“Yes; I could not maintain my self-possession sufficiently well to make me serviceable in a sick room. So I hastened back to my regiment to lose the keen sense of sorrow in active military service.”

“Oh, my dear Britomarte! your experience of men has indeed been very bitter!”

“So bitter—so stringent, Justin, that it contracted and warped my judgment, until I attributed to your whole sex the follies and crimes that I had found only in the evil men immediately about me! And not only in my own generation, and in my sister’s life, but in the lives of my mother and my grandmother. Yes, Justin, it is true this strange chain of coincidences has run through many ages. If all the women of my race had been like me—proud, defiant, high-spirited, the phenomena might have been easily explained. It might have been said that they were a race of viragos who had nothing better to expect than misery in marriage. But this was not the case, at least with my immediate foremothers. No gentler women ever lived than were my mother and my grandmother.”

“But Britomarte, those gentle women, by too deep a submission, ruin their domestic happiness as often as the high-spirited do by their resistance. Men are not gods, dear love, and so they are very often spoiled by women. But there is no danger of _your_ spoiling _me_ in that manner, dear Britomarte,” laughed Justin.

“Indeed there is not,” she answered. “And for this reason—because _you_ would never abuse the power that the law gives you over the outer circumstances of your wife’s life, or that she herself gives you over the inner world of her affections.”

“I think you do me justice, dear.”

“Ah, Justin, I grew up both in feelings and in principles a man-hater. My narrow personal experiences gave strength, bitterness and intensity to my feelings, and the frequent discussions of the topic of the day, ‘Woman’s Rights,’ gave form, shape and consistency to my opinions. And I became a very perfect man-hater.”

She paused and looked at him.

He was contemplating her with deep tenderness, but he made no observation, and she continued:

“It was at this very flood tide of my young soul’s life that I first met you, Justin. And soon, to my consternation, I found that I—a pledged man-hater—was loving you, Justin! loving you with my whole heart, just as all the women of my race had loved men, to their own destruction. How I hated and scorned myself for this love! how I struggled against it, battled with it, trampled on it, tried to tear it up, root it out, and utterly destroy it, you well know.”

“Ah!” smiled Justin.

“Because you see I did not believe in man’s love. When you said to me, ‘I love you—I want you for my wife,’ I interpreted your words to mean just this—‘like your looks, and I want you for my slave.’ Can you wonder that I resisted my own love and resented yours?”

He did not answer. He was still contemplating her with ineffable tenderness and infinite love. And as she met his eyes, her eyes softened, beamed and dilated, her cheeks and lips glowed, and her whole countenance grew beautiful and radiant from the soul’s inner light and life.

“But oh, Justin!” she murmured, “as my knowledge of you grew, and my love deepened, what a change came over my spirit! First I learned that, though all other men might be false and base, you were true and noble. Next came the lesson learned on the Desert Island, where I found by experience how utterly helpless woman was without her brother man. I saw that though in civilized countries, which men had already made habitable for women, by the building of cities, houses and roads; the manufacture of furniture, clothing and utensils; and the promotion of arts, sciences and education,—a single woman might live well enough; yet, in a wilderness, where nothing had been done—where there were no habitations, no manufactures, no planted crops—woman could not possibly exist without man; though he might live without her. This was a humiliating truth to the proud man-hater; but it _was_ truth, and as such she accepted it.”

“But man would have no motive to live or to labor, if it were not for his sister, woman,” answered Justin.

“Then,” she continued, “the war broke out. And that glorious, awful trial brought out all the grandest traits of manhood—his patriotism, courage, fortitude, self-devotion—until oh, Justin, from being a man-hater, I have almost become a man-worshipper!”

“No, don’t!” he said, laughing gaily, catching her hand and pressing it to his lips; “don’t do it! In great seriousness, I shouldn’t like that. Of the two extreme alternatives, I would rather you should continue to be a man-hater, with a single exception in my favor.”

Britomarte smiled at this speech. And before the smile had left her lips, Elfie opened the door; but seeing them alone, was about to close it again, when Britomarte called to her:

“Come in, Elfie!”

She entered, saying:

“There is a couple out in the hall, inquiring for General Rosenthal. They are on their way to the North, but have stopped till the next train for the sake of calling to see the General.”

Justin immediately went out into the hall, where he found Tom and Judith.

They were looking remarkably well; and the Irish woman was eager in her expressions of joy at seeing her old friend, and anxious in her inquiries about Miss Conyers. Justin stepped to the drawing-room door and called Britomarte out.

And there ensued a meeting a great deal more noisy and demonstrative, if not so deeply emotional as any we have recorded.

Judith and Tom had made money enough in the war to cover twenty times over their losses by Monck’s capture of their wagon. And they were now going to New York to start in the grocery and provision line of business. Their time was limited and they soon took leave, amid the kindest wishes for their future welfare.

Since Britomarte’s arrival at the Parsonage, she had noticed that Elfie often looked at her with very roguish eyes. So the first time she found herself alone with that wild young woman, Miss Conyers said:

“Now I want you to tell me what that means? Out with it, Elfie.”

“I must! I can’t keep it any longer! I want to tell you that I knew, if nobody else did, who was the spy that penetrated into the camp of the Free Sword!”

“Oh, Elfie, speak no more of that! It was a stern military necessity, but it will ever remain with me, one of the darkest memories of the war!”

“How many names and how many wigs had you, Britomarte—Wing, Dill, Gill?—You were a very pretty boy in the blue-black curled wig, as Dill; but you were a hideous little fellow, in the short-cropped flaxen wig, as Wing?”

“Elfie,” said Miss Conyers, very seriously, “Dill is missing and will never be found. Wing is dead and buried. Except yourself, there is but one person in this world who knows my identity with those two names. How you have discovered the secret I do not know! But I must put you on your honor to respect it.”

“Here!” said Elfie, lifting a Bible from a centre table, “I will bind myself by a solemn oath never to mention it again to any living soul! not even to Ethel, my betrothed! not even to you! Will that satisfy you?”

“Perfectly, my dear,” answered Miss Conyers, kissing Elfie.

* * * * *

One month later there were three weddings at the Parsonage.

Captain Ethel and Elfie were married and sent off to Colonel Fielding’s renovated home at Sunnyslopes, to spend a short honeymoon. And it was agreed that during Ethel’s absences at sea, Elfie should reside there and keep house for her father, and that should be Ethel’s “anchorage” whenever he should be ashore.

General Eastworth and Erminie were united, and started at once for his home in Virginia, where it was arranged that Doctor Rosenthal should soon join them, with the intention of residing with them, and helping them in their efforts to restore order and industry in their own section of country, and to promote peace and good will between the North and the South.

Justin and Britomarte were the third couple wedded. It was decided that they should reside at the Parsonage until Justin should be mustered out of the service. They went on a short tour through the Northern States; but returned in time to celebrate the Great Thanksgiving of that year at home. The very next morning after their arrival, as they were seated together, Justin took up the morning paper, where, among other interesting items, he saw the advertisement of a celebrated lady lecturer, who was announced to deliver a discourse at a certain church that evening, on the great subject of Woman’s Rights.

“Ah, by the way! How about Woman’s Rights now, sweet wife?” said Justin, as he called her attention to the advertisement.

“While I live,” answered Britomarte, “I will advocate the rights of woman—_in general_. But for my individual self, the only right I plead for is woman’s dearest right—to be loved to my heart’s content all the days of my life!”

THE END.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling. 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.