Nequa; or, The Problem of the Ages

by Alcanoan O. Grigsby; Mary P. Lowe

"But I was married to my guardian," I said. "Actually married. The clerk of the court had issued the license which was a legal permit for us to marry, and the minister pronounced us man and wife according to the solemn rites of the church. My guardian took an obligation to love, cherish and protect and I, an obligation to love, honor and obey; and then the minister invoked the blessing of heaven upon our union and pronounced the solemn warning to all who might object: 'Whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.' Yes, I was actually married to Richard Sage, according to law and the sacred rites of the church."

"The more you explain, my dear Nequa, the more incomprehensible your ideas of marriage become. You say that you were actually married to Richard Sage. That God joined you together, but before He could do so, a permit had to be granted by the clerk of the court. Yet, in your own soul you repudiated this fraudulent marriage, and for nearly fifteen years you searched for your betrothed husband, to whom you felt bound by the laws which God had implanted in your own soul. To me it seems that this first engagement to Raphael Ganoe was the only true marriage, in which God had joined you together and that the court and the minister united to put you asunder. Your own inner consciousness, the spark of divinity that is in you, forced you to take this view of the transaction. From all the facts, just as you relate them, I must still insist that you were not married to Richard Sage. That the ceremony was a fraud and could not annul your obligations to Raphael Ganoe. Your actions demonstrate, that your own true self, took the same view of the matter, and that when you found your betrothed husband you loyally stood by his side in the hazardous effort to reach the pole, and now you are here with him in this inner world where we regard it as our first duty to accept the true and discard the false in all of our relations to each other, and to the universal system of which we form a part."

"I agree with you," I replied, "that my marriage to Richard Sage was false, and that in order to be true to myself and my higher convictions of duty to my absent lover, when I learned that he was still living, I was forced to rend these legal bonds regardless of the consequences; but still, in the eyes of the law, of society and the church, I was the wife of my guardian, the uncle of Raphael Ganoe, and hence his aunt, and as such could never become his wife. Yet I realized that I was united to Raphael in bonds of affection that never could and never should be broken. But all the powers of law, religion, and society were united to hold me to a union secured by deception, which I loathed and abhorred. It was the environments established by this world wide power that held me incarcerated, as it were, in a prison, from which there was no escape but the grave."

"Thank you," said Oqua, "for the light which you have thrown on the present state of your outer world civilization. It seems almost incomprehensible that the laws and usages of any people would seek to make right wrong and wrong right, but I can readily turn to a corresponding period in our own history and trace the evolutionary forces which must now be at work among your people. The old institutional life is ever striving to preserve its forms and ceremonies while the advancing spirit of freedom is continually protesting. At first the advocates of the old order, persecute all who protest against its dictum, and this protest in the name of liberty, often only means license. Both extremes are essentially wrong. But the friction between these two elements, in the end will lead to the discovery of the truth upon which both extremes can unite, and this truth will make them indeed free. The manifest progress of the race is in the direction of the truth, and its logical culmination must be the establishment of altruistic conditions in all the relations which exist between individual members of the human family."

"Well, I am glad that you have at last penetrated my meaning," I said. "The misunderstanding grew out of my inability to formulate my own thought, so as to adapt it to your Altruistic conceptions. I like the word altruism, but the thought that it expresses is so little understood in the outer world, that the word is, as far as I know, generally excluded from our common school dictionaries, while in this country I find that it forms a necessary part of your every day vocabulary. I realize that all of my troubles grew out of environments which were the legitimate product of the false premises from which we drew our conclusions. In speaking of myself as actually the wife of my guardian I only used the popular phraseology to express the conceptions of the people among whom I was raised. They regarded the license and the ceremony as the actual marriage without reference to the plighted troth of devoted lovers. I only used their language to express their conceptions, while my own were expressed by my actions."

"Thank you," said Oqua. "I surmised that you spoke the language of your environments rather than your honest convictions, but I wanted you to say it yourself. You know that I insisted that you should say just what you mean and leave nothing for me to surmise. In all that you have to say, I want you to draw the line clearly between the true and the false, in thought and action, just as you understand the terms, and then we can ascertain where the trouble is and take steps to remove it. You are now in a country where truth alone is recognized as a standard for the regulation of human conduct, and it seems that there ought to be much in the way of mutual explanations between you and Captain Ganoe, and then all will be well."

"I dare not risk it," I said. "I thought just as you do when I secured a position on the Ice King, but I deemed it advisable to conceal my identity until I had ascertained in just what light he would regard the course I had taken. The opportunity came as I have already told you and as yet I have discovered no indications that he has in any way modified his views in regard to such matters. I have ascertained beyond a doubt from two years' association with him, that in him all the prejudices of the popular education of the outer world, its laws, usages and religious notions have crystallized. If he knew that I had spent years, associated with men, in the character of Jack Adams, the sailor, his sense of propriety would be shocked, and I should forfeit his respect, which would be something that I could not bear."

"I cannot see," said Oqua, "how he could cease to respect you. I know that as the scientist of the Ice King, he entertains the most exalted opinion of your ability, courage and refinement of character."

"Yes, Oqua, I doubt not that he respects me as Jack Adams, the sailor. He has given me numerous proofs of that. But as Cassie VanNess in that garb he would regard me as unwomanly and immodest, much below the standard of propriety and respectability of the women of the outer world, with whom he would be willing to associate on terms of equality. Remember that his education, like my own was as far removed as possible from the spirit of altruism. When I left my guardian's home I was penniless, except for an allowance known as 'pin money.' By the marriage ceremony, my fortune had been transferred to Richard Sage. As a woman, I stood no show of being able to acquire a competency, besides I was liable to pursuit and arrest. I had no legal grounds for divorce, and if I had been discovered as the absconding wife of Richard Sage, the multi-millionaire, the courts would have declared me insane, and I would have been incarcerated, most likely for life, in some lunatic asylum. Hence it was from necessity, rather than choice, that I donned male attire and sought employment as a cabin boy. My education, tact and close attention to business led to more lucrative positions which required ability as well as a strict integrity and close application. By rigid economy, I succeeded in accumulating a moderate competence. As a woman I could not have even procured a comfortable subsistence; but I was in male attire, associated with men in all my relations to society, and hence in the eyes of the world my womanly character was under a cloud. For this reason I did not care to reveal my identity to Captain Ganoe until I knew that he would approve the course I had taken. As for myself I was prepared for altruistic principles. My association with the working classes gave me a knowledge of their condition, and I familiarized myself with the best thought of their leaders. But Captain Ganoe had been differently situated. He had continued to move in the narrow circle in which he was born. I had hoped that experience with the world had broadened his views. But I found that I was mistaken. I have studied his feelings and hence have resolved never to give him the opportunity to reproach me for my unwomanly disguise and associations."

"How could he reproach you, Nequa, when he realized that it was all for love of him?"