CHAPTER XLVII.EXPOSURE.
Away! upon this earth beneathThere is no spot where thou and ITogether, for an hour could breathe.—Byron.
Away! upon this earth beneathThere is no spot where thou and ITogether, for an hour could breathe.—Byron.
Away! upon this earth beneathThere is no spot where thou and ITogether, for an hour could breathe.—Byron.
Away! upon this earth beneath
There is no spot where thou and I
Together, for an hour could breathe.—Byron.
General Lyon was the first to break the ominous silence. Turning to the bridegroom, he sternly demanded:
“Sir! what is the meaning of this?”
“Ask your beautiful grand-daughter, sir, who, doubtless, to serve her own pleasure, has lent herself to the basest fraud ever practised upon a man,” answered Alexander, now livid with suppressed rage.
The old gentleman looked gravely upon the laughing face of Anna, and inquired, sadly:
“What is this that you have done, my child?”
Miss Lyon hesitated and looked confused.
“Pray, my dear sir,” said Dick Hammond, taking advantage of the pause and advancing to her rescue, “letmeexplain this humiliating affair.”
“Soyouwere in it, were you?” fiercely exclaimed Alexander confronting Richard. “All right! here isone, at least whom I can and will call to a severe account.”
“I am quite ready,” coolly replied Dick, “to admit and answer for my share in this matter!”
“Dick! hold your tongue! How dare you, sir? This ismythunder! And if you open your mouth again without leave, I’ll—discard you forever! Stand back, sir!” exclaimed Anna, with her blue eyes blazing upon the offender.
He retreated as from before a fire, and stood laughing.
“My dear grandfather,” said Anna, turning towards the veteran soldier, “this is solelymyaffair. May I speak without interruption?”
“Yes, Miss Lyon,” answered the old gentleman, with grave dignity, “I wait to hear.”
“Then, sir, in a very few words, I will resolve the whole mystery. You must know that at the time Mr. Alexander Lyon sought the hand of your grand-daughter, he had already a living wife, or one who believed herself to be so!”
“It is false!” burst forth from Alexander’s livid lips—“as false as——! My cousin has been deceived!”
“It is as true as truth! I will prove it to be so!” put in Richard Hammond.
“Dick! what did I tell you? If you speak again, I will have you turned out!” exclaimed Anna, who was most anxious to prevent a collision between the two young men.
“He had a wife living and sought your hand?” exclaimed the gallant old soldier, slowly turning his eyes from Anna to Alick, and back again. “My child, you must mistake. Such were the act of a scoundrel, and none such ever bore the name of Lyon.”
“Sir!” cried Alexander, in a voice thrilled and a countenance agonized by shame—“Sir, hear me, hear one word of my defence before you utterly condemn me! I do not any more than yourself, understand this strange scene, which seems to have been got up as a very bad joke against me. But—that my nameisLyon should be an all-sufficient guarantee that I am no scoundrel, and quite incapable of seeking to wed one woman while legally bound to another.”
“That is a denial, not a defence,” coldly replied General Lyon.
“Then, sir,” said Alexander, withdrawing a few paces from the group and signaling to General Lyon to follow him—“I have to confess to somewhat of human frailty in order to exculpate myself from the charge of crime.”
“Go on, sir,” curtly commanded the old gentleman, who had come to his side.
Poor Drusilla had lifted her head, which had rested upon the bosom of Anna, and bent slightly forward to hear her fate.
“Will you proceed, sir?” sternly inquired the General, seeing that his nephew hesitated.
“It is an unpleasant story to tell. But lest you should have cause to think worse of me than I deserve, I must admit that the young person here present was my companion for a few months of youthful hallucination; but there was no marriage.”
“Oh, Alick! Alick! Oh! Alick! my Alick!” impulsively burst from the pale lips of Drusilla with a low, long drawn wail of sorrow.
But Anna once more put her arms around the feeble form, and drew the bowed head down upon her supporting bosom.
“Well, sir, what then?” severely demanded the General.
“I must admit,” said Alexander, with a flushed brow, and with some compunction awakened by the voice of her whom he had once loved, and with much shame at having to make the confession—“I must admit that, though there really was none, yet the poor girl supposed there was a marriage, since there was a semblance of one.”
“What, sir!” thundered the grand old soldier, “deceive a maiden with the ‘semblance’ of a marriage and call yourself a Lyon?”
“Again you mistake me, sir!” cried Alexander, a hot blush rushing over his face. “I also believed at the time it was performed that the ceremony which united us was a legal one. I continued to believe so, even after the hallucination which led to the false and fatal step had passed away—continued to believe so until last March, when I chanced to discover that by the accidental omission of an important form my marriage with this girl was illegal.”
“And of course, sir, having discovered such an error, you took the earliest opportunity of rectifying it and making your marriage legal?” said General Lyon, emphatically.
“Ah, sir! have I not told you that the illusion which lured me to the folly of such a misalliance was past and gone? No, sir, I was too happy to be free to retrieve my errors, and to come back, as in duty bound, to my first love and first faith,” said Alexander, turning and bowing deeply to Anna, who drew herself proudly erect and bent upon him a look of ineffable contempt.
“Oh, Alick, my Alick!” breathed Drusilla, in an almost expiring voice.
“Hush, dear child, hush! Don’t you see and hear that he is utterly beneath your love and regret?” whispered Miss Lyon, tenderly drawing the young bowed head upon her shoulder and pressing the poor broken heart to her bosom.
“Proceed, sir!” said General Lyon, scowling darkly.
“There is little more to say but this,” muttered Alexander, in an intensely mortified and irritated tone. “From the moment in which I discovered the illegality of my union with this girl, of course I broke with her—not harshly, but very gently. From that moment I treated her only as a sister, and visited her with less and less frequency until I ceased altogether. Until this hour, I assure you, my dear sir, I had not seen this girl for months, in fact not since April last. I meant never to see her again, but I took measures to provide handsomely for her future support. Such, my dear uncle, is the ‘head and front of my offending’—a boyish error, heedlessly fallen into, deeply repented of and eagerly atoned for. It is seldom that a young man’s follies are so cruelly exposed as mine have been this evening,” added Alexander, with an injured air.
“And this is your explanation?” haughtily demanded the General.
“It is. For the girl’s sake I would willingly have concealed the circumstance; but in the present state of affairs I deemed the explanation due to yourself as well as to my lovely cousin,” replied Alexander, again turning with a bow to Anna, who again flashed back upon him a look of fiery scorn.
“But how comes this unhappy young woman here, sir?” severely inquired General Lyon.
“I beg to refer that question to the young woman herself, or to her two confederates, Miss Lyon and Mr. Hammond,” replied Alexander, making a sweeping bow that included the whole circle, and then stepping back.
“How came this hapless young creature here, Anna?” questioned the old man, turning to his grand-daughter.
“Permit me, if you please, to answer,” said Richard Hammond, coming forward.
“Dick! be silent! If you speak again till I bid you, I will never speak toyouagain! This ismythunder, I tell you, and you have nothing to do with it. Grandpa, order him to be still!”
“Be quiet, Richard. Proceed, Anna!”
“Then listen, sir. You must know that this poor child, living alone in the isolated country house where her husband had immured her, suspected nothing of his wicked addresses to me until the day before yesterday, when suddenly she received authentic information—no matter from whom——”
“It was from——” began Richard.
“Hold you tongue, Dick! She received authentic information, I say, of his intended marriage with me. Believing herself as I believe her to be, his wife in law, as she is in right, and wishing to save him from the sin he meditated and the punishment she feared would be its consequence, willing also to save me from the precipice of ruin upon which I unconsciously stood, this young fragile creature, notwithstandingher delicate health and broken heart, all unfit as she was to travel, came by stage-coach the whole distance from Washington to Saulsburg, and finding no conveyance there, walked all the way through this dreadful weather on this dark night, over the worst roads in the country, from Saulsburg to this house. She came to me in my chamber, privately told me her story, shielding her faithless husband as much as she could; and she besought me to withdraw from the marriage, and save him from guilt and myself from fatal wrong.”
“Then why has she attempted to force herself upon me in this shameless manner? And why have you aided and abetted her in the fraud?” fiercely demanded Alexander, his temper impetuously breaking through all his efforts to maintain a proud composure.
Anna disdained to reply to him. Not one syllable would she condescend to address to Alexander Lyon. But turning again to her grandfather she said——
“Drusilla did not do so; she will never attempt to force herself upon Mr. Lyon. The young wife came, as I said, to save him from committing a felony, and me from taking a fatal step; and not to force herself upon an unwilling husband. It will be well for him, when he shall come to himself, if he can by any means, woo her back.”
“How happened it, then, my child?” inquired the General.
“It was I, who for reasons that will be apparent, urged her to assume my dress and take my place in the wedding ceremony, and thus win back the sacred rights of which she had been so basely cheated!”
“But—still—how was this to be done in such a way, my dear?”
“By rectifying in this second marriage the informality that rendered the first one illegal.”
“And I contend,” burst forth Alexander, “that thissecond marriage is no more legal than the first one was;lessso, if anything! for this is an imposture, a substitution of one person for another, besides being quite as irregular as the first marriage in the same particular of lacking a license!”
“He mistakes, my dear grandfather, there was a license,” said Anna, quietly.
“Yes; a license authorizing the marriage of Alexander and Anna Lyon. Such was the document placed in the hands of the minister!” angrily exclaimed Alick.
“Ibeghis pardon,” said Anna, still looking at, still speaking to her grandfather. “The license of whichhespeaks I burned with my own hands this evening. The license of whichIspeak duly authorizes the nuptial rites to be solemnized between Alexander Lyon and Anna Drusilla Sterling, and it is now in the possession of the minister.”
“It was then taken out by somebody else in my name. It can be of no sort of legal effect,” cried Mr. Lyon.
“Again I entreat his forgiveness; but this one was procured by Alexander Lyon himself, dear grandpa.”
“It isFALSE!—I mean it is a mistake, Anna!” exclaimed Alexander, correcting himself. “I procured no such paper.”
“I fancy that he has forgotten the circumstance, dear sir; but I will refresh his memory!” replied Anna. Then turning to the sorely embarrassed minister who had stood all this time an unwilling witness to this painful scene, she added: “Dr. Barbar, will you have the goodness to return the envelope handed you by Mr. Hammond?”
The good clergyman complied. Anna opened the envelope, and took from it its enclosure, which she handed to General Lyon.
The old gentleman put on his spectacles to examine it. Having silently read it, he exclaimed:
“Why, this is—this is exactly what you represent it tobe, my dear Anna! But it bears date—Heaven bless my soul, of last January!”
Alexander started and turned ghastly pale, reeled, and recovered himself by a great effort.
“How is this, my Anna? What does it all mean, my dear?” inquired the old soldier.
Alexander, putting a strong constraint upon himself, bent forward to hear the answer.
“It means this, my dear sir: You heard Mr. Lyon say that at the time of his first marriage with this fair child he supposed the union to be perfectly legal; but that afterwards he chanced to discover that through ‘the accidental omission of an important form,’ that ceremony to have been quite invalid.”
“Yes! yes!” said General Lyon, impatiently.
“He had some reason for what he said. Listen, dear sir: When this man first prevailed over this poor child to intrust herself to his care, he seems to have meant honestly by her. He procured this license for their marriage; and he took her before a regularly ordained minister of the church. But by some strange oversight he never handed the license to the minister, who, being a Northern man and a new comer into Virginia, and ignorant of the law of the State which required a license to be shown before a marriage ceremony could be legally solemnized, never asked to see the document, but married them, as he would have done in his own State, without it. Months later Mr. Lyon discovered this oversight, and having tired of his fair bride, he resolved to profit by it in freeing himself from his obligations to her.”
“And so this is the license he took out for his first marriage, but never used?” inquired General Lyon, who for the last few moments had maintained a wonderful composure.
“Yes, sir.”
“But how came it into your possession?”
“Sir, the poor child found it among her husband’s papers, and cherished it with a fond superstition, as she cherished her wedding-ring. When she came to me with her piteous story she put that piece of paper into my hands as a proof that she was no impostor. I saw at once how it might be used to get her rights, especially as her first Christian name, like mine, is Anna. So I burned my own license and substituted hers and closed the envelope, which you, dear sir, unconscious of its contents, delivered into Dick’s charge to be handed to the minister. Then, using such arguments as I thought must prevail over a wife and a Christian, I persuaded Drusilla to take my place, as I said. And now I am happy to announce that through my means, and mine only, the omission of that important form in Drusilla’s first marriage ceremony has been supplied in the second, and that she is now unquestionably the lawful wife of Alexander Lyon.”
Drusilla lifted her head from Anna’s supporting bosom, and looked at her husband where he stood, enraged, baffled and covered with confusion. Then she left Anna’s sheltering arms and went towards him, and with outstretched hands, face pale as death, and beseeching eyes, she pleaded:
“Oh, Alick! Alick love! it was not for myself! it was not for myself I did this! Oh Alick! try to pardon me, dear! and I will pray to die and set you free!”
And as if no one had been present but themselves, she sank at his feet.
“Begone!” cried Alexander, furiously stamping, and turning away.
“Sir! you have disgraced yourself and the name you bear!” sternly exclaimed General Lyon, stooping and raising the poor little fallen figure, and supporting it on his arm.
But Alexander was absolutely beside himself with fury.Forgetting that he stood in the presence of old age and young womanhood, forgetting that he was a man and a gentleman, he strode towards his heart-broken wife, and with livid face, starting eyes and brandishing hand, he exclaimed:
“How dared you do this thing? How dared you bring me to this open shame? How dared you brave me thus? How dared you, I demand?”
She did not speak; but with clasped hands and uplifted eyes, seemed to implore his forbearance.
“You have repaid years of kindness by the blackest ingratitude; you have deceived me by the most infamous treachery; you have sought your object by the basest fraud; you have ventured to take the place of the lady I loved and wished to wed, and so, stolen my hand by the meanest trick! I asked you where you found the effrontery to do all this?” he demanded, grinding his teeth with rage and shaking his hand over her head.
Still she uttered no word in her defence; but still with appealing hands and eyes, mutely besought his mercy.
Dick, who had been champing and stamping, and held in leash only by Anna, during this assault, now utterly broke bounds, and cried out:
“Come come, Lyon! I’m blest if I’ll stand by and see a lady brow-beaten so, if it is by her husband! If you don’t stop this instantly, I’ll——”
“Be quiet, Richard Hammond, and let the man speak to his wife,” said General Lyon authoritatively, with covert irony, as he laid his hand on Dick and held him back.
Richard yielded, seeing in this unnatural forbearance of the old soldier, only the ominous calm that portends the fiercest storm.
But, as for Alexander Lyon, so absorbed was he by his own raging passions, that he perceived nothing of this bye-scene. Still brandishing his hand above her drooping head, he continued to pour out his wrath upon his wife.
“You never loved me! You never loved any one but yourself! You never loved me, certainly, or you never would have betrayed me in this base manner,” he exclaimed.
Her white lips quivered—parted, but only inarticulate murmurs issued from them.
“But do not flatter yourself, girl, that your treachery shall serve your purpose. Such a marriage, so procured, can never stand in law. And here, in the presence of these witnesses, I utterly refuse to acknowledge its validity, or to recognize you as my wife! Here, I renounce you forever!”
Her pleading hands were lifted in an agony of deprecation, and then dropped by her side, in despair.
“Had you accepted the position I gave you, although I should never have seen your face again, yet I would have provided handsomely for your support. But now, since you have put this foul deception upon me, for all the help you can get from me, you may—PERISH!” he hissed.
“Not so,” said the fine old gentleman, General Lyon, drawing the arm of the outraged and half crushed young creature, closer within his own. “Not so, by your leave. I charge myself with the care ofmy niece, Mrs. Alexander Lyon. Her home shall behere, with my grand-daughter and myself—here, where she shall live in peace and safety—loved and honored, until such times as you—madman!—shall come to your senses, and sue more humbly for the forgiveness of the wronged wife, than you ever did for the love of the unhappy maiden.”
“You had better be quite sure that the girl in your armisa wife before you offer her the protection of your roof and the society of your grand-daughter!” sneered Alexander, bitterly.
“Sir, you have struck the last blow to your own honor and my patience. Alexander Lyon, if you were not the son of my dead brother I would curse you where you stand!But go!” said the old man, lifting, up and stretching out his arm with an imperious gesture. “Leave this house, and never desecrate its halls again with your presence! and never again let me see your face!”
Cursing and stamping with fury, Alexander turned and flung himself from the room.
In the hall outside his voice was heard calling loudly to his servant to put his horses to his carriage and bring it around to the door.
General Lyon gazed down upon the poor young wife at his side, and said:
“Look up my child. Here is your home and your father and your sister. Be of good comfort, trust in God, and all will be well.”
She answered nothing, but sunk heavily within his aged arms, that yet were quite strong enough to support her sinking form. She had succumbed to one of those fainting fits which, through the agonies she had so long endured, had now become habitual to her.
“Grandpa, she has swooned! Marcy, come here quickly. You are strong; help to carry her to the sofa. Matty, go to the spare room opposite mine and turn down the bed; see to the fire, and come back and tell me when all is ready,” exclaimed Anna, rapidly issuing her orders, while she hastily took off Drusilla’s bridal wreath and veil, and unloosened her dress.
Marcy who had been in the group of servants assembled to witness the marriage ceremony, was quickly on the spot, and with her assistance Anna bore the insensible form of Drusilla to the sofa and laid her on it.
General Lyon followed, looking anxiously upon the pale face of the sufferer.
Dr. Barbar and Mr. Hammond were left standing on the rug, and for the time being, forgotten by their host and hostess.
All available means were used to revive the swooning girl, but all in vain. Anna bathed her face with eau de cologne, and applied strong smelling salts to her nose; and Marcy smartly slapped her hands, but without effect.
While they were thus engaged Matty entered the drawing-room, and announced that the bed-chamber was ready.
“We must take her there and undress her and put her to bed, Mercy; and then we shall have a better opportunity of applying restoratives,” said Miss Lyon.
“Yes, Miss, for it’s little we can do here,” admitted Marcy.
“Dear grandpa,” said Anna, addressing the old gentleman, who still stood watching with interest the face of the patient, “dear grandpa, you have been so worried this evening. Do sit down and rest and order some refreshment for yourself and for Dr. Barbar and Dick, who are being neglected. I shall take Drusilla to the Rose Room and see that every proper attention is given her.”
“But she seems to be dead or dying,” said General Lyon, uneasily.
“No, dear sir; she is only in a swoon, which is very natural under all the circumstances; but not at all dangerous.”
“I hope you are certain of this?”
“Quite certain, sir. Now, Marcy, help me to lift her,” said Anna.
But Dick Hammond, who heard and saw all that was going on, hastened forward to offer his services as bearer.
“Anna, do let me carry her up stairs. I can do so with so much more ease to her than you and Marcy could,” he said. And without waiting for leave, he tenderly raised the unconscious form and gently bore it after Marcy, who led the way up to the Rose Room.
Anna bade good night to Dr. Barbar, and then turned and kissed her grandfather and asked for his usual blessing.
“God bless you, my dear child, for you have done a righteous deed this night. Take care of the poor desolate girl upstairs, and if I can be of any service to her, do not hesitate to call on me, even if you should have to wake me up in the night. My house, my purse, and myself, Anna, are at her orders no less than at yours, as long as she has wants and I have means,” answered the grand old man, as he pressed a kiss upon his child’s brow and dismissed her.
Anna hurried up stairs and met Dick on the landing. He had just deposited his charge on her couch and left her room.
“Hallelujah, Dick!” exclaimed Anna.
“Hallelujah, Anna!” responded Dick, as their hands met in a hearty, congratulatory clasp.
“It is all right with us now, Anna?”
“All quite right now, Dick, darling.”
Dick looked gratefully and then pleadingly in her face, as he took her hand again and gently drew her towards him.
But she laughingly broke away, exclaiming:
“Not now, Dick; not now, darling. I must go to my patient. We must not neglect that poor girl, to whom we owe all our happiness.”
“Indeed we must not,” earnestly agreed Dick.
“Then good night, Dick. I will see you in the morning.”
“Good night, my liege lady. But stay. If I can be of any use, pray command me at any hour of the day or night.”
“That I will, Dick. Once more good night.”
And Anna flitted past him and went into the Rose Room.
There she found that Marcy and Matty had already divested Drusilla of her bridal robes and clothed her in a loose white wrapper and put her comfortably to bed.
They now stood one on each side rubbing her hands.
“How is she?” inquired Anna, approaching and bending over the pallid face.
“No change yet, Miss; but we must be patient and keep up this friction, and she will come to presently,” answered Marcy.
Anna went into her own chamber and quickly changed her splendid dress for a wadded white merino wrapper, and then returned to the sick chamber, and took her place beside the bed, saying;
“Matty, you may retire to rest. Marcy and myself will remain here to-night.”
Matty who was yawning fearfully, gladly availed herself of the permission and left the room.
And Miss Lyon willingly, gratefully, undertook the long night’s watch over the suffering young creature to whose almost incredible energy and heroism she owed her own preservation from a fatal marriage and her hopes of happiness with the man she loved.