p>Belford's Magazine, Vol 2, December 1888
A CHRISTMAS ROUND-ROBIN
I.
THE MORNING BEFORE CHRISTMAS
When Malcolm Rutherford entered the library, on the morning of a certain day before Christmas, he was surprised to find his wife in tears. This was all the more vexatious because he knew that she possessed everything to make a reasonable woman happy; but Mrs. Rutherford was not always a reasonable woman, being prone to causeless jealousy and impulsive to rashness. They lived about five miles from Winchester, Va., in which city Rutherford had a fine legal practice.
"What's the matter?" he asked. "Have any of our guests disappointed us?"
"No," she replied, drying her eyes. "They have all arrived and are in their rooms; and" – here she assumed an air of mystery – "in addition to the house-party, I have invited a couple of strangers to dine with us to-day."
"Indeed! Isn't it just a little extraordinary to invite strangers?" he interrupted.
"Strangers they are to me, but not to you. The woman claimed to be a friend of yours."
"Well, I have some friends whom you do not know."
"Miss Emily Tillinghurst, for example."
Rutherford started and turned red.
"Ah!" continued his wife, in a tone of triumph, "I think I have at last detected you. The woman who called upon me this morning – she has but just gone – was a Mrs. Honey. She had a letter of introduction from Lydia Wildfen; and what do you think her business was?"
"How should I know?"
"To solicit our patronage for a school she is going to open in Winchester. She says that you can recommend her because you once personally placed a young girl-pupil under her charge. Though dying of mortification at your having such a secret from me, I pretended to know all about it, and as your friend I asked her to dine with us to-day and to bring her husband."
"Very good," was Rutherford's comment.
"It is not very good; it is very bad. I demand an immediate explanation of all the circumstances."
"I cannot give it," Rutherford replied, meditatively; "not, at least, until after Christmas."
"A pretty Christmas I shall pass with these dreadful suspicions of you gnawing at my very heart. You must – you shall explain it all to me."
"I neither can nor will," said Rutherford, angrily; and he abruptly terminated the conversation by turning on his heel and leaving her to suffer the tortures of what she believed to be well-founded jealousy.
Rutherford strode down the one street of the suburban village in such blind haste that he ran full tilt against old Mr. Robert Plowden, who was taking a stroll, and who, with his young wife, was a guest of the Rutherfords that Christmas.
"Dear me!" he exclaimed, "you almost knocked me over, Rutherford."
"Excuse me. I'm in an awful hurry to get to the telegraph office. It's fortunate I've met you here, as I've something to say to you which I would sooner not say indoors."
"You surprise me," said Plowden, falling into step with Rutherford. "Is it anything serious?"
"Extremely."
"And concerns me?"
"Yes. I will come to the point, so as not to keep you in suspense. Although so long settled in Virginia, you are an Englishman?"
Plowden nodded, and Rutherford continued: "And although, before you married your present wife, always supposed to be a bachelor, in reality you left a wife in England."
"Merciful heavens!" exclaimed Plowden, half-falling against Rutherford in his surprise.
He was a physically weak old man. "It is all true. I can explain everything satisfactorily, however. But how came you to know all this?"
"I learned it from an elderly Englishwoman who came to my office yesterday. She called herself Maria Plowden – "
Plowden uttered a groan.
"I see you know the name."
"Yes," returned Plowden; "it is that of my first wife, who died in England shortly after I came to this country."
"Are you sure she died?"
"Bless my soul! of course I'm sure."
"Can you prove it?" persisted the lawyer. "How do you know that she is dead?"
"I had a letter from a friend telling me so."
"Have you that letter?"
"I do not know; I may have. But one doesn't keep letters for twenty years. Why do you ask me all these questions?"
Rutherford replied gravely: "Because the elderly woman claimed to be your wife, and desired to retain me as her counsel in the prosecution she contemplated of her alleged husband, Robert Plowden, for bigamy."
"She's an impostor!" cried Plowden.
"She says she has a bundle of letters which will establish her identity," said Rutherford; "and she was so anxious to begin her suit that I could hardly persuade her that she would have to wait at least until after the holidays."
"My God!" groaned Plowden, "could there have been any mistake about her death?"
"All things are possible, you know; your passing as a single man was hardly wise."
"That may be, Rutherford; but my married life had been so full of pain and shame that I wished with her death to bury all remembrance and reminder of it. When quite young I married for her beauty a girl greatly beneath me in social station, and very ignorant. That I could have borne uncomplainingly, even after my infatuation was over, but her terrible temper and, worse than all, her intemperate habits made my life a burden, and, divorce being then next to impossibility of attainment in England, I determined to leave her. In fact, I was obliged to do so. I placed her in a private Home for Inebriates, and with my little Anna, aged six, I came to this country. Shortly after my arrival here I was informed of her death."
"By the proper authorities?"
"No; for it seems she made her escape from the Home and died elsewhere. You can understand that these sad facts made me disinclined to speak of my married life; and as people seemed to take it for granted that I was a bachelor – well, I simply did not contradict them."
"And what became of little Anna?"
"She died on the vessel which brought us over," said Plowden with emotion. Quickly recovering himself, he inquired of Rutherford what he should do in the matter.
The lawyer reflected a moment and then replied: "I too am in trouble. It has just occurred to me that you can help me, and in return I will do my best to help you."
Plowden assured him that he would do anything he could, and Rutherford proceeded to explain himself.
"I too have a secret," he said; "not so bad a one as bigamy, thank Heaven! but bad enough."
Plowden groaned, while
