University of Virginia Library

46. CHAPTER XLVI.
JACK'S MARRIAGE AND JACK'S STORY.

TWO days before Georgie's death she had asked to
see her Uncle and Aunt Burton alone for a few
moments, and during that interview she talked with
them of Maude and Jack, telling them that to the latter she
had given all her possessions, and asking them to receive
Maude as a daughter in her place, and give her a part at
least of what had been intended for herself.

“And mother,” she said to Mrs. Burton, “it is my wish
that they be married at once. Do not let them wait because
I am dead. It is better for Jack to have a wife.
Let them marry immediately. Say it was my dying wish.”

Too much broken with grief to oppose anything which
Georgie asked, Mrs. Burton promised compliance with

everything, and so it came about that three weeks after
Georgie's death, there was a very quiet wedding at Oakwood,
and Maude was made Jack Heyford's wife. Aside
from the family, only Mrs. Churchill and Roy were present,
together with Edna and Uncle Phil, who, at the earnest
solicitation of Maude came down to the wedding, looking
very smart and trim in the new coat bought for the occasion,
and the white vest, and big white handkerchief tied
about his neck, giving him the appearance of a Methodist
minister. Mrs. Burton was a little shocked with his manners,
and was glad there were no more guests present to see
him. But Mr. Burton enjoyed him thoroughly, and took
him all over his farm, and went with him to drive a fast
horse which he had just bought, and which came near breaking
the necks of both the old men. Roy, too, who had
seen him at Rocky Point, was very polite to him and made
himself so agreeable, that Uncle Phil prolonged his stay to
a week, and when he left, he had Edna's promise to visit him
in October, while Roy was to come for her when her visit
was over.

Remembering the widowed Janet among the Scottish hills,
and the promise made to Georgie, Jack planned a short
trip to Europe, and when on the day following his bridal,
the Scotia sailed out of the harbor of New York, he stood
upon the deck with Maude at his side, her face radiant with
happiness and joyful anticipations of the new world to which
she was going. She had as yet heard nothing of Janet, or
Jack's message to her, but one bright, balmy day, when the
sea beneath them was like glass, and the sky overhead as blue
as Maude's laughing eyes, Jack led her to a retired part of
the steamer, and seating himself beside her, told her
Georgie's story, and why he was going to Scotland.

Georgie had been very beautiful in her fresh girlhood, he
said, and they had been so poor, living on one floor of a

tenement-house down on Varick street. She was older than
Jack by a few years; was his half-sister, whom he had loved
devotedly ever since he could remember anything. His
father had died when he was a mere boy, and soon after his
death, Georgie, who then was known as Louise, her real
name being Louise Georgiana, had sought for a situation in
a milliner's establishment on Canal street. But her face,
and her natural love of coquetry was against her, and after
both sons of the proprietor had owned themselves in love
with her, she had been dismissed as one who did not know
her place. Through a kind friend who was interested in the
beautiful girl, she went next to a dry-goods establishment,
where she met with Henry Morton, a good-looking young
man, whose virtues were rather of the negative kind, and
whose infatuation for Louise Heyford was unbounded. She
meant to marry rich, and while waiting upon customers, her
thoughts were always intent upon the future, when she too
could wear her satins and diamonds, and have her carriage
waiting at the door, while she purchased what she liked,
irrespective of the cost. Henry was poor, and as such did
not gain favor very fast with the young girl, although while
building her Spanish castles she managed to hold him fast in
her meshes, making of him a perfect tool, to come and depart
according to her pleasure.

Suddenly the firm failed, and again Georgie was without
employment, with a greater love for dress and admiration
than ever before, inasmuch as she had been so flattered and
caressed. Her next situation was that of nursery governess
in the family of Mr. Le Roy, who lived on Fourteenth street,
and who had seven daughters, and one only son. Here, in
this family where a governess was but little more than an
ordinary servant, and where she was seldom or never admitted
to a glimpse of the gay world, save as she saw it in
the rich dresses the young laides wore, or heard it in the

snatches of talk in which they sometimes indulged in her
presence, she lived a dreary, monotonous life, always sitting,
and eating, and sleeping in the nursery, where she washed
and dressed, and taught and hated the three little Le Roys,
who were the fruit of a second marriage, and who did all
they could to worry their young teacher's life away.

It was getting to be intolerable, and Georgie was beginning
to think seriously of giving up the situation, and either
returning to the home on Varick street, or accepting Henry
Morton, when the only son of the house, Richard Le Roy,
came home from Europe, and everything was changed as if
by magic. They met first in the nursery, where Richard
came for a romp with his little half-sisters. He was very
fond of children, and as the little ones were nearly crazy
over their tall, handsome brother, waylaying him at every
corner, and dragging him with them, it came about naturally
enough that he was often in the school-room, where a pair
of the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen, soon began to
brighten when he came, and a young face to blush and half
turn away when it met his admiring gaze. Perhaps he
meant no harm at first, for he was not vicious or bad at
heart. Georgie was a poor little lonesome thing, who was
shamefully neglected by his proud sisters, and who would be
far more in place in the drawing-room than in that pent-up
hole with all those young ones worrying her to death, and if
he could do anything to ameliorate her condition, it was his
duty to do it.

Thus he reasoned, and acted in accordance with his reasoning,
and spent a great deal of time with the children, and
sometimes took them to drive, always insisting that the
governess should accompany them. She needed air and exercise
as much as they did, he said, and to Miss Elinor
Shawe, to whom he was said to be engaged, he talked very
freely of Louise Heyford, and his charitable labors in her

behalf. And because of his frnak, honest manner, no one
suspected evil, or dreamed of the fearful results of his deeds
of charity. Henry Morton's face wore a sober, disappointed
look those days when Louise snubbed him in the street,—
and was always engaged, or had a headache when he tried to
see her; while Louise herself expanded each day into new
freshness and beauty, and her eyes shone like stars, and
seemed fairly to dance in the exuberance of her happiness.
Richard promised her marriage,—honorable, though private
marriage, because of his family,—and their future life was to
be spent in Europe, where none would know that he had not
chosen his bride from his own social rank. All Louise's
castles were about to come real, and in her own mind she
had settled her bridal trousseau, and her style of dealing with
her husband's family, when suddenly, as a thief in the night,
the blow came, and Richard Le Roy was stricken down with
a prevailing epidemic,—cholera, some called it. In twenty-four
hours from the time when his kiss was warm on Georgie's
lips, he lay a corpse in the room where he had died, with
only Georgie and his father with him. His step-mother and
sisters had in the first alarm fled to their chambers, and
locked themselves in from the dreadful pestilence, though
not until Sophie, the eldest sister, had begged of the despised
governess to go to her brother and help him if she
could.

“Cholera does not often attack healthy girls like you, but
it would kill me sure,” she said, wringing her hands in great
distress, while Georgie stood motionless, with her face and
lips as white as ashes.

It was fear, Sophie thought, and she tried to reassure the
young girl who needed no reassurance, and who went swiftly
to the room where her lover lay. He knew she was with
him, and clasped her hands in his, and tried to tell his father
something,—but the words were never spoken, and before

the sun went down he was dead; and Georgie lay upon her
face in her own solitary room trying to fight back the horrid
fear which amounted almost to a certainty, and which within
three days drove her to the store where Henry Morton was
a clerk. He saw her as she meant he should, and the sweetness
of her smile, and the great change in her manner toward
him, drew him again to her side, and revived all his love for
her. There was a chance meeting next day in the street, a
long walk in the evening, followed by another and another,
and ere Richard Le Roy had been in his grave a month,
Henry Morton and Louise Heyford were man and wife.
Contrary to the usual course of things, she had been the
one to urge an immediate union. There was no necessity
for delay; they could earn their living better together, and
she did so want a home of her own, if only one room. He
should see what a nice housekeeper she could be, she said,
when he proposed waiting a few months until he had more
laid up.

So they were married, and they rented two rooms, and fitted
them up as prettily and cosily as his limited means would
allow, and there he brought his handsome bride in November,
and there, early in the following May the little Annie
was born. She was a full-grown, healthy child, with no resemblance
to the father, who, troubled and mystified, looked
at her curiously, and then at his young wife, and then went
away alone, and thought it all out, while as he thought there
came over him a change which awoke all the evil passions
of his nature, and transformed him into a demon of rage and
jealousy. There was a stormy interview between him and
his wife, a full confession from her, and then he cast her from
him and drove her into the street, where, with her baby in
her arms, she wandered half the night until it was no longer
safe for a respectable woman to be abroad.

Faint, and tired, and sick, she stepped from the car, and
turned toward the home in Varick street.

“I'll try it,” she said. “I'll tell them the whole truth, and
if they too turn me off, I'll go to-morrow to Greenwood and
die on Richard's grave.”

As yet, neither her step-mother nor Jack knew of her disgrace,
for the former had been sick, and Jack had not been
to see her since Annie's birth two weeks before. Jack slept
soundly that night, and dreamed that some one called his
name. Waking at last, he listened, and heard Georgie's voice,
calling him to come, and telling him she was dying. That
was no dream, and in a moment he was dressed and at the
door, where he met his sister with her baby in her arms, and
her face so white and ghastly that he uttered a cry of alarm,
which brought his mother to his side.

“Louise, it is Louise,” he said, taking her by the shoulder,
and pulling her into the room. “It is Louise, mother; but
what brings her here at this time of the night, and what, what
is this she holds so tight?”

An infant's wail told him what it was, and ere he could step
forward, Georgie held the baby to him and cried:

“Take her, Jack; take her before I die.”

And so it was Jack who first received the little unwelcome
child. Jack's arms, which held her close, and Jack's voice,
which tried to hush her plaintive moans. As she entered the
room Georgie had sunk down upon the floor, and when her
step-mother tried to assist her she pushed her off, exclaiming:

“No, no, not yet; let me lie here in the dust until I tell
you all and you know how vile I am.”

Then, amid tears and sobs she told them the truth; how
she had sinned, and deceived her husband, who had driven
her from him with the fury of a madman.

“I have been in the street, out in the dark ever since,”
she said, and I thought once to go down to the river and

end my miserable life, but the touch of baby's hands kept me
from it, and at last I come to you. Oh Jack, don't turn
from me now,” she sobbed, as she saw the look of horror on
his face. “I know what I am, but don't you turn against
me. You are all I have in the world. Forgive me, Jack.
Take me in. Try me, for the baby's sake. You may learn
to love her sometime, and to pity me.”

She was at the boy's feet now, and her hands held him
fast, as she begged thus for his pardon. And Jack forgave
her then and there, and laying the baby upon his mother's
lap, he lifted Georgie up and strove to comfort her, and said
so long as he could work she should have a home. He
was earning good wages now; he supported his mother, and
with a little more self-denial on his part, a little overwork out
of business hours, he could support her. He did not kiss
her; he could not do it then; but he kept his hand upon her
neck while he talked to her, and Georgie did not feel one-half
so desolate when she felt the touch of that boyish hand.
Jack had saved her; Jack would stand by her; Jack would
shield her as far as possible. And he did; and, with his
mother's help, managed so well, that none of their few acquaintances
guessed the real cause of the separation between
Georgie and her husband, or why the former kept so carefully
out of sight with her baby when any of them called. It was
mortification, and a natural shrinking from meeting old
friends, they thought, and so excused it in her, and gradually
forgot to speak of her and her affairs at all.

At first there was in Henry Morton's face and manner a
kind of sullen, brutish ferocity, which made him so unpopular
that he was finally dismissed by his employer, and cast
upon the world, a desperate man, with nothing to do, nothing
to live for, his home desolated, his wife lost, and himself dishonored.
Falling in with a set of the New York roughs
who live mostly by theft and fraud, he went rapidly from bad

to worse, becoming such an expert in robbery that he was
always put to do the work inside, while his comrades watched
without. Thus it happened that he was found in Roy Leighton's
house, and afterward identified by Russell, who knew
him by a defect in his right eye, which had been put out
when he was a boy. Although he gave an assumed name, it
came out at the trial who he was, and that he had a wife,
whom he had abandoned. Then came the verdict of the
jury, the sentence to the penitentiary, followed swiftly by escape,
and the forgetfulness by the public, as is usual in New
York; where robberies are so common, and escape from justice
not unfrequent.

A year went by, and Georgie received a letter from her
husband, telling her he was dying of an incurable disease,
among the Alleghany Mountains. Then came a paper containing
a notice of his death, and then Jack went himself to
the little inland town to make sure that the wretched man
was dead. There could be no mistake about it, he thought,
and Georgie breathed freer, and urged her brother's removal
to the West, where they were unknown to every one, and
where she could begin life anew as Georgie Heyford,
instead of Louise Morton.

And so westward they went, settling first upon a farm
which Jack worked upon shares, taxing his strength too
much, until his health began to fail, and the farm had to be
abandoned. The next move was to Chicago, where Jack
procured work as half porter, half errand boy, in the store,
and rising gradually to a higher place of trust as clerk, and
gaining the good opinion of all who came in contact with
him. Georgie and his mother supported themselves by
plain-sewing and fancy needle-work, while the little Annie
was known as the orphan child of a friend of Mrs. Heyford,
and Georgie passed for a young girl. Very few people
knew her, as she seldom went out except to get or carry

work, and her life bade fair to go on in the same quiet, monotonous
way, when there came a letter, which changed at
once her whole destiny.

It was from Mrs. Freeman Burton, whose only sister had
been the first Mrs. Heyford, and Georgie's mother. As
girls the two sisters had been strongly attached to each other.
Early orphaned, they had clung together, and by needle-work
and teaching supported themselves respectably, until a rich
old man, who might have been Mrs. Burton's grandfather,
had fallen in love with and married her, thus raising her to
a position of wealth and importance, and furnishing a home
of luxury both for her and her sister Annie. The latter,
however, had given her affections to young Heyford, who,
though poor, had this in his favor, that he was young and
well connected, and that she loved him devotedly, which
was more than could be said of the gray-haired husband of
Mary, the elder sister, who had sold herself for gold, and
who set herself against the Heyford match. But love won
the day, and with her sister's farewell words, “never come
to me if you are starving,” ringing in her ears, the young
wife went willingly with her husband, and for his sake bore
cheerfully a life of comparative poverty, and tried to do her
duty by her husband and the little child born to them within
the first year of their marriage.

When she heard that her sister's husband was dead, she
wrote her a letter expressing her sympathy, and offering to
go to her in case she could in any way comfort or console
her. To this letter no answer came, but a year after, Mrs.
Heyford was surprised at receiving a call from her sister,
who came in quietly, and unattended by carriage or servant.
She had married a second time, and was now Mrs. Freeman
Burton, of Madison Square. Knowing that her sister was
in New York, she had found her out, not to renew acquaintance,
but rather to prevent it. She was very frank and

open, and said what she had to say in a manner which left
no doubt as to her meaning. “Their paths in life were very
different,” she said. “As the wife of Mr. Freeman Burton
she was entitled to, and should take, the very first place in
society, and as her sister was situated so differently, it would
be unpleasant for them to meet each other often, and they
might as well make up their minds to it first as last. She
should come occasionally to see Mrs. Heyford, but should
not feel badly if her calls were not returned, and she greatly
preferred that Mrs. Freeman Burton should not be known
as the sister of Mrs. William Heyford, who lived on the upper
floor of a tenement house far down town, and made
dresses for a living.” That was decisive. The sisters never
met again, and when at Christmas time Mrs. Freeman Burton
sent a check for one hundred dollars to Mrs. William
Heyford, it was promptly returned, and the intercourse ended
entirely when Mrs. Heyford died, as she did, not long after.
The husband sent a paper containing a marked notice of
the death to Mrs. Freeman Burton, and a second time that
lady mounted the three flights of stairs, and knocked at No.
—. But the rooms were shut up; the child Georgie was
with her father's friends, and Mrs. Freeman Burton stole back
to her fashionable house, and cried all the morning over the
memory of other days, when she and her dead sister had
been the world to each other.

Six months later, and she received another paper containing
a marked paragraph. Mr. Heyford had married again,
and lived now on Varick street, whither Mrs. Burton ventured
to go, crying over the little Louise, who had a look
like the dead sister, and appearing far more friendly toward
the second Mrs. Heyford than she had toward the first. Still,
there was no wish expressed for further intercourse, and the
families for years knew nothing of each other except through
the little presents of books and clothes which were occasionally

sent from Madison Square to the little Louise, and which
Mrs. Heyford kept.

When Georgie was thirteen, she heard that her aunt had
gone abroad, and in the exciting scenes of the ensuing years
which followed, she almost forgot the existence of such a
relative until a letter came from her, saying she had returned
to New York and reopened her house, and was coming in a
few weeks to Chicago to find her dear niece.

“I have been a very proud, wicked woman,” she wrote,
“but I hope I am trying to do better, and wish to make
some amends for my treatment of my poor sister by being
kind to her child.”

This was the secret of the whole. Mrs. Burton did believe
herself a better woman, and perhaps she was. An ardent
admirer of Dr. Pusey, she had in her the elements
which made her afterwards a devoted Ritualist, and she
wanted to do something which should prove her reform to
herself. Upon inquiry in the neighborhood where she had
left her sister's family she could learn nothing of them, so
completely had they dropped out of memory. Remembering
at last the name of Mr. Heyford's former employer, she
went to him and heard that her brother-in-law was dead, and
the family in Chicago; that was all the man could tell her.
Of Georgie's marriage he knew nothing. Mr. Heyford died
years ago, he said, and he had taken the boy Jack into his
employ until he went West, since which time he had heard
nothing from him.

In this dilemma, Mrs. Burton wrote to Georgie, directing
to Jack's care, and then waited the result. For days the letter
lay unclaimed, and then appeared among the list of advertised
in one of the daily papers. It caught Jack's eye,
and he immediately went for it and carried it to Georgie, who
counted it the brightest day of her life when her aunt came
to their humble home, and offered to adopt her as her daughter

and give her every advantage which the heiress of Mrs.
Freeman Burton ought to have. There was no hesitancy
on Georgie's part. Dearly as she loved little Annie, she
loved ambition more, and said at once, “I will go.”

To Jack's suggestion that she tell her aunt of her marriage,
at least, she turned a deaf ear. No one must know
that. To go to New York as a widow with a child would
seriously mar her plans, and then in the winning, fascinating
way she knew so well how to use, she persuaded Jack into
taking an oath that he never would reveal her secret to any
living person unless she first gave him permission to do so.
From her step-mother a promise of silence was all she could
obtain, but she knew Mrs. Heyford well enough to feel sure
that she was safe; and casting the past behind her, she said
good-by to Jack, her mother, and Annie, and went with her
aunt, who had no suspicion that the beautiful young creature,
who seemed so soft, and gentle, and innocent, had a hidden
history, from which she would have shrunk in dismay.

What Mrs. Burton hated she hated cordially, and what she
loved she loved as cordially, and she lavished upon her niece
all the affection which she had withheld from her sister and
both her husbands.

At first she had her taught at home under her own eye,
and then when she felt that she had acquired a little of the
polish and knowledge of the world, which would be expected
from Mrs. Freeman Burton's daughter, she sent her to a
fashionable boarding-school, from which she emerged a finished
young lady, and became a belle at once. Her after
career is so well known to the reader that it is useless to repeat
it here, though Jack told Maude of the deep love there
had always existed between his sister and the little Annie,
who worshipped her as some superior being; “and I loved
her, too,” he said, as he finished the sad story, to which
Maude had listened wonderingly, “loved her as few brothers

have ever loved their sisters. I knew she had many and
glaring faults, and sometimes in my anger I was almost desperate
in my feelings toward her, but a touch of her hand, a
tone of her voice, or a beseeching glance of her eye, had
power to quiet me at once, and I would almost have walked
over burning coals for her sake, when in her softest mood.
I knew, too, that she loved me,—honestly, truly loved me,—
and now that she is gone it is a comfort to remember it, for
there were times when I was very harsh with her. Poor
Georgie; in many things she was a splendid woman, and
though she greatly erred, I feel that at the last she was sorry
for it and repented most sincerely, and I believe she is in
heaven now, with Annie and my mother.”

There were tears in Jack's eyes, and his voice shook so
for a few minutes that he could not go on with his story;
but after a little he continued, and told Maude about the
burglar at Oakwood, and why he was going to Scotland.
It was on a mission for Georgie; and Maude entered heart
and soul into it, and would scarcely let him rest a day in
England, so anxious was she to find the Janet among the
heather hills, and the fatherless little bairns. They found
them at last,—a rosy-cheeked, brown-haired little woman,
and two fair young children with her, one clinging to her
dress behind, and peeping shyly out as the strangers came
in, and the other turning his sightless eyes toward them.
Their errand was soon told; and when Jack saw how bitterly
poor Janet wept, he felt that Henry Morton had been
a kind, loving husband to her, even if in secret he had done
her wrong. After arranging about the money which Georgie
had sent to the widow, who supposed it came from her
husband, Jack and Maude repeated their offers of assistance
whenever it was necessary; and then promising to see
Janet again before returning to America, he bade her good-by,
and started on their tour through Europe.