What of Imelda’s past? What were the dark forbidding shadows that threatened to overcast her future?
Nothing unusual; interwoven only with a story such as has darkened many another young girl’s life. The history of one woman’s life, the threads of which were woven so closely with hers as to hold her to those past memories as in a net in whose meshes no loophole had been left. Imelda’s mother, just such a bright, beautiful and queenly girl as she herself now was, had wrecked her life upon the rock upon which thousands daily, hourly are wrecked. Of what this rock consisted we shall see as our story proceeds.
Nellie Dunbar was the child of poverty. She was one of eight children, whose parents probably could not have taken proper care of one. So, instead of giving Nellie that which every child has the right to demand of those who take upon themselves the responsibility of ushering children into existence, viz: a thorough education to develop their mental capacities; proper care of their young bodies to enable them to become full rounded women and men; careful, tender nurture of both body and soul—instead of giving Nellie and her numerous brothers and sisters all this it was only in their very young days—days when the minds of children should be free and unburdened of care save childhood’s plays, that they were able to send them to school at all. While yet of very tender age, when toys and books should have been their only care, these were laid away upon the shelf and their young strength pressed into the much needed work of helping to support the family.
Oh, ye parents of the millions! Do you ever think of the wrongs daily and hourly perpetrated upon the children, those mites of humanity whose advent into the world you yourselves are directly responsible for; upon whose unborn souls you place a curse that is to work out its woes in the coming ages—children who with all their unfitness are to become in turn, the parents of the race?
Nellie found work in a cloak factory, and, as she sat day by day bending above her machine she often almost cursed the fate that made her a working girl; only she had been taught that such thoughts were impious. That it was a good and all-wise “God” who had mapped out her life, and that it would be wicked to be anything but thankful.
But Nellie’s heart was rebellious. Not always could she quell the longings that would well up therein. So when one day a handsome, dark-haired, dark-eyed man found this beautiful uncultured bird she fell an easy victim. It was the old, old story over again, of a trusting maiden’s love and of man’s selfish appetite. Not that he was a greater villain than men are wont to be, but men, like the bee, are used to sip the honey from every fair flower hereon they may happen to alight. He knew he would be envied the possession of the love, the favor, of this beautiful creature, by all of his friends, while the possession itself would be unalloyed bliss to him.
But a time came when his plaything tired the man of fashion and culture. He would have dropped it, but he had reckoned without his host. Maddened by the sneers and innuendoes of her hitherto companions and by the insults of men, all the latent devil that lies hidden and veiled within the heart of many a loving woman, was aroused. Having managed to purloin from her brother’s pocket a shining little toy and hiding it within her heaving bosom, she sought her betrayer’s side. With burning cheeks she demanded of him to do her justice.
He would have tried again to soothe her fiery blood with honeyed words, but they had lost their power. Her faith in him had been destroyed; never again could she trust him. He sought to allay her fears with fair promises; he would marry her, if she would wait a few days; he wished to arrange his affairs; he would prepare a home for her.
The young girl’s eyes flashed ominously as she answered: “No! I will not wait. Now! instantly, do I want my due.”
Herbert Ellwood began to grow impatient. He was tired of the scene. Curbing his temper, however, he again made answer: “This evening, then, I promise to be with you although you are very foolish not to wait a few days longer, until I should have had prepared a home to take you to.”
She looked like a lovely fury as she stamped her foot in rising anger. “Now!” she cried. “Now, within the hour! I cannot, I will not trust you one moment longer.”
The hot blood mounted to his white forehead,—Did this pretty fool think that she could command him?—him who had always been the darling of fair women?—him who needed but to hold out his hand to find it eagerly clasped by any of a dozen fair ones? Scorn curled his lip, and the habitual gentleness from his manner suddenly fled.
“Enough,” he cried.—“I am tired of this. Go home and wait until I come.”
With this he turned his back upon her, making it very plain to her that he considered the obnoxious interview at an end. But the demon in the girl’s heart was now fully aroused. With a quick step she had reached his side. Despair and anger gave her strength. By one quick movement she whirled him round when he found flashing in his eyes the shining barrel of a revolver.
“I will avenge my honor on the spot, here and now,—wipe out my shame in your blood if you delay an instant longer to do me the justice I demand.”
She spoke the words in a tragic manner. She had worked herself into a frenzy, and Herbert felt it was dangerous to longer trifle with her—that she was capable of executing her threat. So he submitted to the inevitable. With a sigh he donned his coat and hat and hailing a hack they were quickly driven to the nearest minister’s whose son and daughter witnessed the ceremony.
Through it all Nellie’s cheeks were the color of blood; her eyes gleamed like living coals. When all was over, her overwrought nerves gave way. Breaking into a fit of hysterical weeping, she sank at her unwilling bridegroom’s feet. Frightened and shamed he gathered her in his arms, carried more than led her from the bewildered minister’s presence into the waiting hack.
He was at a loss where to take her. He could not take her to his bachelor apartments. He feared to take her to her mother in the condition she was in, knowing only too well that the ignorant woman would not hesitate to heap abuse upon her daughter’s head when she knew all. So, after a few moment’s consideration, he named some distant hotel to the waiting hack driver, where, upon their arrival, he procured rooms and saw that she was properly cared for.
It was long ere she became quiet. The unhappy girl walked the room, backward and forward, while a storm of sobs shook her form. For a time Ellwood feared insanity would claim her. He was not at heart a bad man, and such an ending to this day’s work would have been most unwelcome to him. He had been living merely to enjoy himself, as a certain class of young men are in the habit of doing, though it be at the expense of some other member of the human family, probably not stopping to think, not realizing, what the cost may be to that other. He had fallen desperately in love with Nellie’s fair face and, had she loved him “more wisely,” as the saying is, it is likely he himself would have proposed marriage. But his fever having cooled somewhat he recognized only too well the fact that they two were not mated; that true happiness could never spring from such an union.
But—well, things had taken a different course. Full well he knew that he had wronged the beautiful but uncultured girl. He was now called upon to make reparation, and marriage had set its seal with its “until death do us part,” upon them.
As remarked before, he was not a villain. Now that the deed was done it took him but a short time to make up his mind to abide the consequences, be they what they might. He knew they were unsuited to each other; that they had very little in common, but he knew that she was beautiful. He would never need to be ashamed of her appearance. He had had the benefit of a splendid education. He had a lucrative position, and by casting overboard many of his old habits and associates he thought they might be able to get along. Then, too, she was used to work. She knew and understood the value of money; surely with her experience in life she would be able to manage—would understand the art of housewifery.
Alas, he did not know, did not understand how this having been used to work all her life caused her to hate work. As he had been lavish with her—spending his money freely when in her society, the idea had taken deep root in her brain that he was wealthy; whereas he had only that which his position—bookkeeper, secured him. She had denied and stinted herself so long that now she meant to enjoy.
It was not an easy matter for the young man to be true to his resolves and do what he considered his duty by her. If, in those first hours when her grief had been at its greatest, he had folded her to his heart with real affection, instead of forcing himself to every caress—to hide the deep disappointment in his inmost heart—may be he might yet have reawakened the love that through deceit had turned to Dead Sea fruit upon her lips. Or, if she with womanly tenderness had coaxed his ebbing love into new life, things might have been different. But, as it was, the hour wherein she had found herself compelled to force him to comply with her demands and make her his wife, in that hour her love for him had died—died for all time.
Had she been a woman cultured and refined she would have scorned him; that lacking, she was simply indifferent. She no longer cared for that which once had constituted her heaven, but, on the contrary, was inclined now to a desire to get even with him, as the saying is. It was not a great soul that Nellie was the possessor of. A poor but pretty—nay, a beautiful girl, born under circumstances such as children of her are usually born under, surrounded and reared in the same manner, what could you expect?
And Herbert Ellwood? Ah! he felt more keenly. The sowing of the wild oats that young men are unhappily supposed to have a right to sow, and even ought to sow, according to the views of some—had only for a time threatened to stifle that which was good and true in his nature; and bitterly in his after-life did he rue the sowing.
After having made up his mind that there was now but one proper course for him to pursue, that course he meant to pursue. Days passed on. He soon found that to harvest his crop of wild oats was not so easy or so pleasant as the sowing had been. Nellie’s temper was the rock upon which all his good resolves stranded. He would have taught her many things that would have had a tendency not only to make her a polished lady but which would have been of daily, almost hourly use to her, but she mistakenly argued that as she had been good enough in the past to while away the time with, pretty enough to cause him to fall in love with her, she was good and pretty enough now as his wife, just as she was. She did not understand that it was ever so much more difficult for a wife to attract and hold a husband, even in those few cases where love rules supreme in the home of the married couple, than it is for a bright and sparkling young girl to win a lover.
But time sped on; the months passed by and then came the hour when the cause of this most unhappy union was ushered into existence—a little brown eyed babe. The fair Imelda was born. For a while it seemed as if the young couple would return to the love of their earlier days. The advent of the little creature was something wherein they had a common interest. But as Nellie grew stronger her attention was all taken up by baby, who proved a charming dimpled darling, cooing and laughing in the faces of both parents alike.
But the young mother never was the old self again. The charming girl soon developed into a fretful discontented woman. The man that found life such a disappointment gave all his love to his baby daughter and it was not long until the baby screamed and struggled at his approach. Perched upon his shoulder, her tiny hands buried in his clustering curls, she would babble and crow with delight. For the time Herbert Ellwood would be happy, but even this sight—a sight that would have melted most young mothers’ hearts with pride and happiness, was only another bone of contention between them. Squabbles and quarrels were of daily occurrence.
Nellie was irritable and dissatisfied. Her health was failing her. Herbert was tired and disgusted with his unpleasant home, and began to spend his evenings away from it. In consequence many lonely hours fell to Nellie’s lot. Often her pillow would be wet with tears. She was unhappy and knew not the reason. She laid the blame at Herbert’s door; whereas he, poor fellow, had done all in his power to bring things to a different issue. He had miserably failed.
But neither knew the reason why. Both failed to understand that as they had ceased to attract, as they had scarcely so much as a single thought in common, they should long ago have parted. They were falling in with that most abominable practice of modern times and of modern marriage,—to “make the best of” what contained absolutely no best!—as their union was miserably barren of all good qualities. Each was conscious of a dull aching void, with no understanding as to how it could be filled.
Time passed on, and other babies came,—unwelcome, unwished for mites of humanity that sprang from the germ of a father’s passion, gestated by a mother with a feeling of repugnance amounting almost to hate. What mattered it that in the hour of birth each new comer was caught lovingly to the mother’s breast, when in that moment of mortal agony the wellspring of her love had been touched. No amount of later love could undo the mischief done before its advent.
Some of these babes were ill-natured and puny from their birth, born only to pine away and die, racking again the mother’s heart. Two others, a boy and a girl, grew to be the torment of the household and the bane of their mother’s life. And still the babies came, and oh! so close, one upon the other, until the poor mother thought life was a burden too great to be borne.
Such a flood of anger and hate towards the father and husband, would sweep over her heart as the knowledge of each conception was forced upon her! At such moments she felt as though she could kill him.
Reader, can you read between the lines? Can you see the hidden skeleton in this miserable home? Do you understand how it all could have been avoided? Herbert Ellwood, as stated before, was not a bad man. Instead, he possessed many noble qualities. But he was a child of modern society. He was a husband, possessed of a wife. He had always been what the world calls true to that wife. He was possessed of health, strength and passion. Is it necessary to say more? The story is a plain one, and an old one. The thinking reader will find little difficulty in discerning that theirs was the curse of modern marriage life.
