Chapter XIX: Tears of Repentance

I HAD only been in Madrid a few weeks before I found that my husband was jealous, unreasonably jealous. He was so exacting that he demanded all my attention. If I conversed with my old acquaintances, young or old, of either sex, he made a scene. My father remonstrated, and they came to open fight, my husband declaring that he would have no interference with his wife. To avoid quarrelling I gave up society, and even at my father's table became constrained in manner, scarcely daring to speak lest I should meet the reproachful eyes of my husband fixed upon me. Finding that even this reticence did not satisfy him, I went to the other extreme, talked and laughed—yes, and flirted too,—with any one. This went on for more than a year. I need not say that we were both wretched; for, strange as it was, I still loved my husband, in memory of the few weeks of unalloyed happiness after our marriage. I think he loved me, too, though he had greatly changed,—grown cold and sarcastic.

"I was driving out one afternoon in company with a servant, when I met a traveller, alone and on foot, who started at my approach, gazed fixedly in my face as we slowly passed, and then ran after the carriage. I was in delicate health, and his sudden reappearance greatly startled me. In his excitement he did not notice my fright; but, speaking a few words in English, he forced me to alight and join him at a distance. It was Henreich, my brother, my long-lost idol, shattered and destroyed. The fiercest passions lighted his magnificent eyes. He asked for father, and cursed both him and his own bad luck that our parents still lived. When I hurriedly told him I was married, he was so angry he would have struck me. He asked for money, saying, repeatedly,—

"'I must have money. I will have my portion of the estate. By fair means or foul, I will have what I want.'"

"I could not get away from him till I had given him my purse and every jewel I had about me, and had promised to meet him at night in a retired part of our grounds,—I thought I could steal away unobserved.

"Perhaps I could have done so but for the servant, who was afterwards discovered to be a spy my husband had set upon me, who told him of the strange meeting as soon as we returned home. He had never heard my brother's name, and must have wondered at my conduct.

"I went instantly to my chamber, where Mr.— soon joined me, coming to the couch where I lay, and gazing in my face with such marks of agony as I could not account for.

"At that moment my love came upon me with all its fervor. I put up my arms and drew him down to me, and wept on his shoulder. I kissed him repeatedly, and did not notice at the time that my caresses were not returned. I was so exhausted by what had passed that I fell asleep. I woke, shouting,—

"Henreich! O Henreich, go away! Why did you come back?'

"'Who is Henreich?' My husband's voice was so stern, so unnatural, that it frightened me. In one instant I realized that if I said, 'He is my brother,' he would not believe in the existence of one of whom he had never heard. Indeed, my father often spoke of me as his only child. If he did believe me, Henreich would be discovered, and my father's name disgraced; for, from what I had seen, I was sure his life had become wholly corrupt. These thoughts flashed through my mind, as my husband stood with blanched face and eyes protruding looking into mine. Would that I had explained all to him! I am sure love for me was struggling in his breast with the contempt he imagined I deserved; but I did not explain. I resolved that I would give all the money I could raise to my brother, and send him away; that when he was out of reach I would tell my husband the whole story, under a promise from him of secrecy.'"

Mrs. Douglass hid her face in her hands, unable to proceed.

Tears were trickling down Marion's cheeks.

"Perhaps I am doing wrong to tell you all this, Miss Howard. You blame me for my want of frankness, but not half so much as I deserve, and you will see that I have been terribly punished. I stole from the house at the hour I had promised to meet my brother, with a large sum of money in my hand, and a letter in which I told him it was the last time I would help him. I begged him to go away, and begin a life of honesty and virtue I signed myself your affectionate sister.

"My husband was watching, and saw me go out. He followed, heard the sound of excited voices, saw Henreich take me in his arms, and, as he thought, strain me to his breast. Alas! it was a ruffian who held me, while he tried to force me to yield to him my betrothal ring, a superb diamond. He succeeded in wrenching it from my finger. How I regained the house I never knew. I found myself in my own room on a couch, with my maid bending over me. I was told afterward that one swoon had succeeded another, physicians had been summoned, and remedies administered. At the sound of my voice mother came forward with our attending physician. Another spasm came on. Two days later I lay hovering between life and death, and my little babe lay beside me, the very image of Henreich as he was when I first remembered him.

"I was too sick at first to notice the absence of my husband. I learned later that he saw me fall in trying to reach the house, caught me in his arms, and laid me on the couch. He summoned my own maid, who saw him seize a few papers from the drawer and go out into the darkness. From that day to this I have never seen him. All these years, if he has lived through them, he has believed me to be a guilty thing, not worthy even of his contempt. All these years his child has never heard her father's name, and he whose heart was always touched with the sorrows of a child has never heard the sacred name of father from his child's lips. Too late I learned to love him with an intense affection, which, if it had been cherished earlier, would have led me to overlook faults of manner and roughness of speech which, perhaps, after all, were put on to disguise deep feeling.

"Only once in all these long, weary years have I heard from him. Our beautiful babe was two months old when my father received a letter, stating that a sum of money had been placed in the hands of trustees, who were named, for the benefit of my child, if living. He said that he considered the marriage tie broken, and that he should never trouble me again.

"He was right: believing of me what he did, he could not do otherwise. I honor him for it,—but I must hurry to a close.

"Henreich did not succeed in escaping the vigilance of persons who were in search of him. He had hoped to secure enough from me to reach a foreign land and chide justice. When his arrest was made public, the servant who had been with me on my first meeting Henreich confessed, with bitter tears, that she had told my husband that which caused him to watch me on that dreadful night. She said his agony of grief at what he called the certainty of my unfaithfulness frightened her, and she ran away, repenting that she had told him.

"Henreich's arrest and death, though under an assumed name, threw my mother into a fever, from which she never recovered. Two years later, father married a Spanish widow, with several sons and daughters. The eldest son was ten years older than Juliette, and was being educated in France and Germany. He returned to his home when she was only a few months over fourteen, became enamoured of her beauty, and a secret engagement took place. When I learned of it I refused my consent; but the infatuated child followed the example of her mother, and would not yield her own wishes. His mother agreed with me; but my father said there was no blood relation between them, and if they would wait till she was of proper age there was no objection.

"This half-consent was enough for Arthur Cheriton. He took Juliette out for a drive one day. When they returned they were man and wife. After living together a year, he found her unformed in mind and wilful in temper. He went to England on the plea that after obtaining a situation he would send for her.

"Eugene was just one month old when his father left home. We have never seen him since. A small fortune from my father at his death, together with the income from the sum my husband settled on us, has sufficed for our maintenance. It will support Juliette and her boy in comfort; but it is for her I fear. She has many of poor Henreich's traits, and her beauty attracts many admirers. My prayer is that the heavy afflictions which have separated us from those we love may wean her from earth as they have the mother; that she may find in the exercise of the duties of a Christian life the solace nothing else can give.

"One word more and I have done. Once a year we have heard from Arthur, whom I have always kept advised of our place of residence. I have reason to suppose he is in America, perhaps in New York. This was what led me to say that we might be compelled to leave the city. Juliette has lost all her love for him, and insists that she will never recognize the tie which binds them together. As long as I live, I shall go with her where she goes; but I know death may claim me at any time,—and then what will become of my child?"

"Was your husband's name Douglass, too?"

"I took my father's name when he cast me off."