Milady Monte Cristo. A novel

Front matter

A NOVEL r,v JOHN PENNINGTON MARSDEN author of "the personal history of jim duncan, job-lot sketches." etc., etc. LONDON OSGOOD, McILVAINE & CO. 45 Albemarle Street, W. 189S [All rights reserved] Dedication. My darling Son, It was you who suggested the plot of my story, and to you I dedicate it, now that it is finished. You remember ; we were sitting before a little cafe in the Esplanade des Invalides, one hot summer day, waiting to be admitted to the tomb of Napoleon ; when you asked me if I had thought of a plot for the book I was about to write. This question having been answered negatively, you spoke of an incident you had lately heard or read of, in which a young man applied to a clergyman for the performance of the marriage ceremony, for the express purpose of having a wife to whom he might leave, in the event of his death, the plunder he frankly admitted he hoped to acquire in the pursuance of an unlawful enterprise.

In relating the story, you " builded better than you knew," for you Clothed it with considerable dramatic colouring, and, at your bidding, a picture rose before my eyes which I have endeavoured to enlarge in the following pages. How far I have been successful in doing so, I leave it for you and my readers to judge. From my point of view, the experience gained in producing this book has been an interesting one ; both because VI Dedica tion. it has demonstrated to me the possibilities connected with the growth and development of a literary germ ; and, secondly, because, in the present instance, if the fruit shall in any sense justify the labour that has been expended upon its cultivation, I shall have one of the sweetest and best of boys to thank for the planting of the seed from which it grew. J. P. M. Paris, March, CONTENTS.

I Triumph at Last .... -294 CRISTO.

Chapter I

I MEET MY PRE-EXISTENT WIFE. It is proper to explain that I was a newly ordained clergy man, living in a newly settled town in the far west of the American Continent. I was sitting one evening in my study, turning many things over in my mind, and, I am free to confess, arriving at vey far from satisfactory results, when the door-bell rang and I heard voices, evidently discussing a question vital to myself, as one of them said, rather decidedly, I thought, " No, I want to speak with the parson myself ; and I can't call again, as I am leaving town to-morrow morning early. I shan't keep him long, and if it's inconvenient, why, I'm sorry for it ; but business is business, I suppose, with parsons just as well as with other people." Then I heard a rap on my study door, and my only servant entered and explained that a man and a woman wished to see me, and seemed disinclined to be put off with the excuse that I usually desired to reserve my evenings to myself, having devoted the day to the service of my parishioners.

The object of the untimely visit was as clear as the noonday sun. The couple in the hall-way had come to be married ; but why trouble me with the affair at night, and just as I had settled down before the fire, after my labours, for a little well-earned repose ? I had been on duty all day, and very much at their, or any one else's disposal ; why couldn't they have made their arrangements to come then ? Besides all this, I had a constitutional objection to marrying people at my own house, and in the evenis Crlsto. 2 ing. There's a dignity appertaining to the marriage service of our Church, which departs when stripped of its peculiar ceremonials. I must say I like everything done in its right time and place. Then, outside of all this, I was just coming out of a little experience, somewhat allied to the errand upon which this man and this woman had sought me that evening ; and, well, I won't speak of it now ; but I was in a mood in which I was disinclined to go into the matter of matrimony at all ; either on my own or any other person's behalf.

I was a little out of sorts. It was fated, however, that I should have vey little option in the matter ; for at this junc ture, and without waiting for a further invitation, a tall, fine-looking man entered the room, and behind him, but partly concealed, was the woman. They had stolen a march upon me, and I couldn't send them away now ; however much I might have been disposed to do so. I resolved to make the best of the situation, and cour teously asked them to be seated. The couple accepted my invitation and took chairs ; sitting, however, as they had stood, in such a position that it was impossible for me to obtain a full view of the female visitor. Now I wish to explain that mybishop was one of a type, who while allowing his subalterns a large latitude in the exercise of their churchly functions, was at the same time a little inclined to hold them to a strict accountability for any errors or omissions ; or, for the matter of that, for any undesirable results ; how ever unavoidable on the part of the officiating clergyman.

In the matter of marrying a couple particularly, as in a newly settled and unorganized community like ours there was no license to be either applied for or obtained, and men married and gave in marriage pretty much as they pleased, he was inclined to insist upon the obtaining of as much information as was possible respecting the ante cedents of the persons seeking to be united. As I had only my promotion to look for in the vocation I had chosen, it behoved me to be cautious in what I did ; and this constituted another objection to my going on with the proceedings that evening. With these con siderations in view, I determined to raise all the obstacles possible to the furtherance of the wishes of my visitors, / Meet My Pre-exlstent Wife. 3 and hoped thereby to dispose of the case and their com pany as speedily as the laws of hospitality would admit.

I therefore began by questioning the man, who appeared to be the spokesman of the couple, as to his rights and qualifications to be admitted into the order of matrimony7. Clearing my voice, and putting on the clerical manner which I flattered myself I knew how to assume rather well for the short time I had been in the Church, I asked, " Will you kindly tell me your name and that of the lady you intend to marry ? I should also like to know the nature of your occupation, the parish to which you belong, the particulars of your past life, the names of your friends ; and, last of all, the reason of your coming to me at this time of night, and apparently7 in such haste, to request me to perform a service which is usually celebrated in the full light of day, before witnesses and friends, and in church ?

" My manner was severe and clerical, but it seemed to fail in impressing the gentle man addressed, for he was ready with his answer in a twinkling, and tripped it off as if it had been rehearsed over and over again. " My name is John Skelton, and the lady's name is Melia Hamilton. I suppose ' Melia ' is short for Amelia. We always called her that ; and have kinder grown up to it. I think it is a prettier name, if that has anything to do with it, but anyway it's Melia ; and that's the name I shall marry her under. That answers the first of your questions. Now, as to the second, and the others, I might as well tell you my whole stoy and have done with it. You want to know what is my occupation. Well, as to that, I have had a lot of occupations. Shortly after I was born I found myself doing all the chores about a miners' camp.

I never rightly knew who my father and mother were, I must have had them, I suppose ; but they either died or left me to look after myself, or lost me. Anyhow, I was left alone in the world, and I be came boy of all work among as rough a lot of men as I ever remember to have fallen in with, before or since. I was kicked and cuffed about and made to do all the most disagreeable work of a camp at a time when things in the mining country were a deal rougher than they are now ; and that's saying a good deal. I stood this kind of thing B Mllady Monte Crlsto. 4 just as long as I could, and then I ran away. I was a strong lad by this time, and able to do a man's work anywhere. Then I had made the best use of my advantages, and had readily acquired a knowledge of the miner's craft. I soon had another place, this time with a man who was prospecting for silver mines in the territory of Nevada.

Nevada was almost an undiscovered county then, and we had a rough time of it. The great Comstock Lode was yet to be found, and we found it. Thousands of tons of silver have been raised from those mines since, and silver has become almost as cheap as tin ; but it was not so in the times of which I speak. Fortunes have been made and lost by the score on the San Francisco Stock Exchange in Comstock Lode mining shares, and we should have been silver kings several times over, if we had only know-n what was to be. But we didn't ; and we, or rather my boss, only made a moderate sum, as compared with the fortunes of to-day ; and then, having worked vey hard for his money, concluded to give up work and go to 'Frisco to speculate and lose it. I was still a young man with my fortune to make, and this move on the part of my employer threw me out of work, and I was compelled to look for another job.

I soon found one among the miners whom the fame of the Comstock had attracted to the county, and I worked hard and did well. After a time, having laid by a little money, I drifted into speculation and laziness, and began to lose ground. When I came to the end of my money I found that I had lost my relish for hard work, and like many young men of the time and place, I tried my luck in 'Frisco. I landed in this town dead broke, and had as much as I could do to keep body and soul together while I was looking about for something to do. I naturally tried to find some trace of my former employer, but had no success in that line until I was just upon starvation point. " One day I was walking the streets, engaged in making up my mind as to whether it was to be a case of suicide or robbing a bank, when I thought I saw a familiar face in the crowd of speculators about the Stock Exchange, where all the adventurers of the day congre gated.

The man was shabbily clad, and looked older / Meet My P re-existent Wife. 5 than the original of the person he resembled ; but I soon became convinced that I was right in my first conjec ture : it was indeed the man with whom I had been prospecting in Nevada. I approached him and laid my hand upon his arm. He gave a start as if he had been expecting an arrest, and at first appeared to have for gotten me altogether. There was reason for this, as it had been some years since we had met, and time had dealt as hardly with me as it had with him. The meeting was a joyful one on both sides, and probably for the same reason : we both were looking for a chance to borrow money ! We adjourned to the nearest public house and exchanged accounts of our several adventures. Hamilton, since arriving in 'Frisco, had succeeded in losing his money beyond his most sanguine expectations.

As he put it, ' The boys had just walked right through him.' His comfortable fortune had melted away like wax before a fire. He went on to inform me that, shortly after his arrival in San Francisco, he had met a lady of great personal attractions whom he had subsequently married. The result of the union was the birth of a child, the young woman who is now to become my wife — Melia. It was a short time after the loss of his property, a vey short time, that he discovered a falling off in the affection of his wife, and not long after this a letter from this lady announced the fact that she had left him, ' from a sense of duty,' she said, ' that his burdens might be lightened.' It's a cheerful way of putting it, but women have queer ways of looking at things. Well, this left my friend alone in the world with a young child on his hands, and with very little to look to for its support.

Matters went on from bad to worse, and at the present time both he and the girl were living in a garret, and only held this shelter on the most temporary and uncertain lease. " This brought my friend's story up to date, and the delicate question now arose — what was to be done ? I saw in a moment that I had come to the wrong quarter to borrow money ; but misery loves company, and so I suggested that we would join forces and face the world again as we had done in Nevada. This proposal was met with enthusiasm by my friend, and we ratified the treaty over a glass of whisky and water. I then accom panied him to his dwelling, and I must admit that it quite equalled the anticipations I had been led to form of it. Well, we began life over again, Hamilton and I. We had seen hard times together in the past, but we were called upon to face difficulties of a vey different kind now.

Poverty, debt, despair, were the heritage of this unlucky co-partnership. The one bright spot in both our lives was little Melia. To provide this child with the comforts of life was the dearest object of our lives. It was a hard struggle, but while we had this incentive life was supportable. We tried our hands at eveything : speculation, gambling, borrowing, and finally it came pretty close to downright stealing. As eveyone knows, who had anything to do with mining shares in San Francisco during the excitement brought by the development of the silver find on the Comstock Lode, dishonesty was to be met with on every side. From the man who brought out the company down to the Stock Exchange tout who led even the servant girls and bootblack into parting with their earnings to buy shares ; dishonesty, swindling, extortion were the watchwords of the day.

My friend and I had a hand in each and evey one of these desirable practices. Nothing was too barefaced or shady for us that seemed likely to bring grist to our mill, or to provide food and comforts for our little Melia. Such doings were sure to lead to no good, and in time we were found out and came nearer to being encompassed by the law than was pleasant or desirable. " After this the atmosphere of 'Frisco became oppres sive to us, and we found it convenient to leave the place. We wandered about through the neighbouring towns, seeking for occupation, but finding none — that is, none that suited our fastidious tastes. Melia now became a great responsibility7 upon our hands, and a restraint upon our movements. We could not engage in any enter prise that might result in endangering her position, and, I am free to admit, the thought of doing anything to cast a shadow upon the innocent child's future w7as about the only consideration that kept us out of mischief.

We were becoming desperate. But I am making my story / Meet My P re-existent Wife. 7 rather too long, and I will bring it to a close. We finally settled down in a mining town not far from here, and found work in interesting the unsuspecting travellers who came to the place in the location of claims. We toiled at this for a year or two with indifferent success and varying fortunes. Sometimes we would make a lucky hit, and live in clover for a while ; but it was gambling and speculation, to say the best of it, and we often found ourselves pretty near the margin of the law, even the law of this lawless county. My friend Hamilton, in the meantime, was evidently7 losing his grip — was getting discouraged. A life full of disappointments soon begins to tell upon a man, and my poor friend had had a siege of it.

He fell ill, and I could see from the start that his end had come. There were now two souls upon my hands to provide for, and I had all the load I could carry. " One day, as I was setting out to my work, Hamilton called me to his bedside and plainly told me that he was booked for the other world. He said it might be a matter of weeks or a matter of days, but his end had come. He wished to talk it all over with me, at any rate, and prepare for the worst. It's a sad thing to talk to an old friend about taking leave of life, and yet the impression it left upon my mind was that I should rather take the journey with him than be left behind. We had been companions in good and evil days, and this is a great bond. I sincerely loved the man ! Well, we talked it over, and he told me a good deal about himself ; about his early life and his adventures.

He was of a good family, but early mistakes both of his own and his people's had made it necessary for him to leave home, and he had wandered ever since. He dwelt lightly upon this part of the stoy, and only as it explained what was to follow. He then came to the desertion of his wife, and the anguish he felt at the unprotected condition of his child. He begged and implored me to be a shield and a guardian to this helpless little one, and although it was not necessary, he made me take a solemn vow that I would protect and look out for her. After I had done this he placed in my hands a sealed packet containing, he said, papers which might some day be valuable in more ways than one. Some of them related to family matters. Some of them represented claims to several mining properties in which he had been interested, and which in these speculative times might some day make his darling a rich and happy woman.

At any rate I was to keep the documents safe, and only to entrust them to a party upon whom I could implicitly rely, in case of my death or misadventure. Then we had a sad and serious talk about the future of his child ; the best way to provide for her education, the way to train her. We discussed her character, and her good and bad points. He didn't say so, but he clearly hinted at it that it would be his wish to have me take her as my wife when the time was ripe for it, intimating that although the life I could offer her was full of changes and uncertainties, it was the one she had always led and was the best suited to. He spoke of me as possessing qualities which sooner or later ought to raise me out of the circumstances by which I was now surrounded, and so elevate the woman I took to my heart.

It was a pleasant thought to him, a dying man, that I had youth and strength and good health on my side to redeem and make my name in the world, and bestow it upon his beloved child. He was sure I could and would. " So we spent the morning in talking all these matters over, and I did not go to work that day. In the afternoon he complained that he wanted rest, and Melia and I left him to sleep, while we went for a walk. When we returned we found him awake, but very feverish and weak. The end was near. That night I was called to his side. In a weak voice he asked me to wake Melia and bring her to him. I did so, and he had just strength enough to place her hand in mine, and then, taking a loving look at us both, he turned his face to the wall, and silently passed away. A few days after ward we buried him in a country churchyard ; and Melia and I were alone in the world !

" Skelton paused for a moment at this point of his stoy , and looked at his companion as if for confirmation of the truth of what he had said. The young girl acquiesced with a sorrowful bow of her head, and he went on : " Well, we mourned our loss, Melia and I, and then came the question, what was to be done? She was fast approaching the age when it became proper to / Meet My Pre-existent Wife. 9 clearly define our relations, or rather the world would look at it so, and I felt keenly alive to my responsibility in that regard ; the more so that she was too innocent to appreciate the extent of the change in the situation, now that her father was dead and gone. We talked it all over, I steering as near the point of fully explaining the matter from a worldly point of view as I dared, but I saw from the start that it was no use.

Her mind was not receptive to this new teaching, and I for one gloried in the fact that it was not. So, without consulting her, I arranged that an old woman who had done odd jobs for us should come and live with us until a better plan could be devised, explaining to Melia that I did not wish her to be lonely while I was away at work. In this way we have lived now fora year or two, until the time arrived when for many rea sons I decided upon the step we are about to take to-night. " You see, parson," Skelton said, turning to me as if seeking my support for the argument he was about to advance, " You see, matters have not gone well with me in the line of business I have taken up. I have been anything but a success ; and I have made up my mind to look out for a new field of action. I have at least been offered an opportunity of joining a company of men who are about to engage in rather a desperate enterprise, but one in which the game is well worth the candle.

If we succeed, we shall all be rich. If not, we may lose our liberty, if not our lives. I cannot take Melia with me, and yet I want to leave her as protected as I can. She is now a woman ; I have her father's sanction, and I intend to marry her. I reason it out that a married woman has a better chance in the world, and is more respected than a single one. Then, another consideration is that if anything happens to me after I have made a bit of money, I want Melia to inherit it ; and there might be some question about that if she were not related to me in any way. Then, finally, as to love ; well, I think I may say I love her. Whether or no it is the kind of love to marry on, I cannot say ; but I have not much choice in the matter. I have asked Melia what she thinks about it, but she leaves it all to me, which is awkward ; but it is what you might expect.

She has her father's wish before her eyes, and I am really the only man she has ever met with. At any rate she has consented to the move, and we are here to-night to carry it out. " Now, sir, I have told you my stoy, and you know who I am as well as I can tell you. Outside of my love and duty to this fatherless girl, I'm a devil ; ' a general devil,' I call myself, for I am ready and willing to engage in any line of devilry in which I can make a living ; and I am not particular. Now I want to know if you will marry us or not. If not, I shall be sorry, as I have heard of you as a kind-hearted parson, and more than that, as a decent, sensible fellow. I well know that parsons are supposed to be a little careful whom they marry, but I ask you if it is not better to marry a couple who wish to be married, than to encourage them to live together without being married ?

The question don't altogether apply to our case now, as I am off to-morrow and may never come back ; but some day it may." Here Mr. Skelton's story came to an end, and I saw that my time had come to act. Now, generally7 speaking, I am a cautious man, and of all things in the world I dislike being rushed into a decision I have not had a reasonable time to arrive at by my own peculiar approaches. Then, there was my bishop ready to take me to task for any blunder I might make in the discharge of my clerical duties, but equally disinclined to give me the credit of any action I might perform on my own account. Here was a man, applying for the celebration of one of the most important rites of the Church, who candidly admitted he was a des perate character and soon to be engaged in an unlawful enterprise.

What if it came to the ears of the bishop, through the papers, that a man named Skelton had broken into a bank the night after he had been married by the Rev. William Hardy? Or what if it turned out the man before me had already a wife and several children whom he had neglected to mention in his long account of his personal adventures ? Such cases had happened, to my own knowledge. There was no one to vouch for either the man or his stoy. He had come to me an entire stranger. He admitted he lived out of my parish, and so had no claim upon me, and more than that he had come at night, after I had earned / Meet My Pre-existent Wife. 11 a quiet hour or two for contemplation by my7 fireside. He had consumed the whole of a valuable evening in the narration of his family histoy, and now coolly expressed himself as willing to allow me to walk into no end of traps and troubles just to please him !

Oh no, it wasn't good enough ; and I put on my severest manner and plainly told him so. Still, I am an obliging man, and I wished to be supplied with as good a reason as possible for refusing a favour ; and in this case, desired the applicant himself to furnish it. I explained incidentally my7 great objection to performing the marriage ceremony out of the church edifice, and without proper witnesses. I pointed out to him the injustice he was doing the lady of his choice in insisting upon marying her under the peculiar circumstances which surrounded his case. I intimated that it was his duty to shield a young woman as ignorant of the world as he had stated Miss Hamilton to be from just such an experience as this. I said it would always leave ground for regret that the most important event in a woman's life had been treated with the implied secrecy and mystery attaching to the performance of the marriage ceremony that evening.

I was watching the expression of Skelton's face, as I said all this, hoping to discover some acquiescence in my line of argument ; but I was disappointed. He heard me out respectfully enough, and then rising in his seat, said : — " Well, parson, I'm sorry it has turned out as it has, for now I shall be obliged to leave Melia unprotected and alone. You see, I intended to place in your hands all the ready money I have, and to ask you to see that she wanted for nothing that this sum would purchase. I also wished to ask you to see to it, in the event of my death, that she received the property she would be entitled to as my wife and heir. All this will be impossible now, as far as you are concerned, and, as it is not likely I shall be able to find another person to marry us to-night, and as I must positively be miles away from this place to-morrow, why, I shall have to give the matter up.