ENTERTAINING ANGELS.
Little can we tell, who share
Our household hearth of love and care;
Therefore with grave tenderness,
Should we strive to love and bless
All who live this little life,
Soothing sorrows, calming strife,
Lest we wrong some seraph here,
Who has left the starry sphere,
Exiled from the heavens above,
To fulfil some mortal love.—T. POWELL.
In the course of the next week, one or more from every family who had
been invited to the Christmas party, called, and all who did so, left
cards also for Mrs. Alexander Lyon.
Besides this, Mrs. Colonel Seymour, the nearest neighbor and most
intimate friend of the Lyons, issued invitations for a large party to
come off on Twelfth Night. And the General, Anna, Drusilla and Dick,
each received one.
“What shall you wear, Drusilla?” inquired Anna, as the two young women
sat together looking at their cards.
“Dear Anna, I do not know that I shall go,” answered Drusilla, gravely.
“Why not?”
“I have an instinctive feeling that I should live very quietly while
separated from my husband—live, in fact, as I should have lived, if I
had gone back to Cedarwood alone.”
“If you had gone back to Cedarwood alone, it would have been eminently
necessary for you to have lived the life of a hermit, to save your
reputation from utter ruin; and even then you could not have saved your
character from misconstruction and misrepresentation. But now you are
living with us, which makes all the difference. Here you may freely
enjoy all the social pleasures natural to your youth. The most malignant
stabber of fair fame that ever lived would never dare to assail a lady
who is a member of General Lyon’s family,” said Anna, proudly. “And it
was to secure this freedom of action and these social enjoyments to you,
no less than to shield you from danger that my dear grandfather so
firmly insisted on your remaining with us,” she added.
“Oh, how can I be grateful enough to him for all his loving kindness to
me? Oh, Anna, under Divine Providence, he has been my salvation!”
exclaimed Drusilla her face beaming with gratitude and affection.
“I am very glad you came here as you did, my dear and gave him the
opportunity of doing what he has done. He has a great large heart, and
not objects enough to fill it. He is very fond of you and your boy, and
your presence here makes him happier. But ‘to return to our
muttons’—about this party at the Seymours. Now, as to your scruples
about going into company, instead of living secluded on account of
Alexander’s desertion,—dismiss them at once. Leaning on my grandfather’s
arm,—for he is to be your escort, and Dick mine,—you can go anywhere
with safety. But, if there is any other reason why you do not wish to go
to the Seymours, of course you can stay at home. We wish you to use the
most perfect freedom of action, my dear Drusilla, and we will only
interfere when we see you inclined to immolate yourself upon the pagan
altar of your idol. So, in the matter of the party, pray do as you
please.”
“Then, if you and uncle think it right, I would like very much to go
with you. I enjoy parties. I enjoyed ours very much.”
“I should think you did. You are not seventeen years old yet, and all
your social pleasures are to come. You were the beauty of the evening,
my little cousin.”
“Oh no, Anna, oh, no, no, _no_, Anna! that I never could be where _you_
are!” exclaimed Drusilla, blushing intensely with the earnestness of her
denial.
“Nonsense! I am an old maid. I am quite _passée_. I am nearly
twenty-three years old, and have been out five seasons!” laughed Anna,
with the imperious disdain of her own words with which a conscious
beauty sometimes says just such things.
“Oh, Anna, Anna, how can you say such things of yourself? I would not
let any one else say them of you, Anna! Why, Anna, you know you moved
through your grandfather’s halls that night a perfect queen of beauty.
There was no one who could at all equal or approach you!”
“Nonsense, I say! I overheard several people say that I was not looking
so well as usual—that I had seen my best days, and so forth.”
“They were envious and spiteful people whom you had eclipsed, Anna, and,
if _I_ had heard them, I should have given them to know it!”
“_You_, you little pigeon, can you peck?” laughed Anna.
“Pigeons can peck, and sharply too, I assure you. And I should have
pecked any one whom I heard saying impertinent things of you; but I
heard nothing of the sort—I heard only praises and admiration. But
there! I declare you ought not to disparage yourself so as to oblige me
to tell the truth about you to your face, for, in this case, truth is
high praise, and it is perfectly odious to have to praise a friend to
her face,” said Drusilla.
“I agree with you. So, if you will let me have the last word and say
that you really _were_ the beauty of our ball, I will consent to drop
the subject. And now for the other one! So you would like to go to the
Seymours?”
“Yes, very much, for I enjoy parties. I do not think I should like to go
to one every day or even every week; but once or twice a month I really
should enjoy them.”
“What a moderate little belle! Well, and now comes the next important
question. What are we to wear? Unluckily we cannot order the carriage
and drive down the street to the most fashionable modistes and inspect
the newest styles of dress goods and head-dresses and all that, as if we
were in the city. We are in the country, and must make our toilet from
what we have got in the house. Heigh ho! it is a great bore, being so
far away from shops.”
“But, oh, Anna, we have got so much in the house. Think of your
magnificent trousseau, with scarcely one of your many dresses touched
yet.”
“That is all very well. But you know they were made and trimmed between
two and six months ago; and every week something new in the way of
trimmings and head-dresses comes up in town. However, we must do the
best we can. It is a country ball and all the guests will be in the same
case, that is one comfort.”
“Not one of them will be so well off as you are with your trousseau.”
“That is true, and that is another comfort, a very selfish one however.
Well, let me see, I think I will wear my light blue taffeta, with a
white illusion over it, looped up with bluebells and lilies of the
valley, with a wreath of the same. How will that do?”
“It will be very pretty and tasteful.”
“And you, my darling? What have you to wear? You know my dresses fit
you, and my wardrobe is quite at your service.”
“Thanks, dear Anna; but I have a great plenty of dresses that have never
been worn, and of dress goods that have never been made up. In the first
weeks of our married life my dear Alick bought every rich and pretty
thing he could lay his hands on for me.”
“Very well, then. What shall you wear?”
“You know that being in the second year of my mourning, I am restricted
to black and white. I think a black illusion over black silk, with the
sleeves and bosom edged with ruches of white illusion; pearl necklace
and bracelets, and half open white moss roses in my hair and on my
bosom; white kid gloves and a white fan. There, Anna dear, I have given
you a complete description of my intended toilet.”
“And nothing could be prettier. Here comes grandpapa!”
And at that moment the old gentleman entered the room.
“Well, my dears, if we _are_ immured in the country at this festive
season of the year, we are not likely to be very dull, are we?” smiled
the old gentleman, holding out his card.
“No indeed, sir; that we are not! But what do you think of Drusilla
here? She was really meditating upon the propriety of giving up all
society, and living the life of a recluse,” said Anna, mischievously.
“Well, if such a life is so much to her taste, we have no sort of right
to object,” the old man replied, in the same spirit of raillery.
“But it is not to her taste. Drusilla is formed by nature and
disposition to enjoy all innocent social pleasures. But she imagined
that in her peculiar circumstances it became her duty to retire from the
world altogether.”
The veteran turned his clear eyes kindly on his protégée, and taking her
hand, said:
“My dear child, when I gave you a daughter’s place in my heart and home,
and took a father’s position towards you, I became responsible for the
safety of your fair fame as well as for your person. Both are perfectly
secure under my protection. No one will venture to assail the one more
than the other. Go wherever Anna goes, enjoy all that she enjoys. It is
even well that you should have the harmless recreations natural to your
youth, and that she should have a companion of her own sex. And I shall
always be your escort.”
Drusilla pressed the old man’s hand to her heart and lips; it was her
usual way of thanking him.
And this quite settled the question, if it had not been settled before.
When Twelfth Day came, Anna and Drusilla, beautifully attired in the
dresses they had decided upon, and escorted by General Lyon, and Dick,
went to the Seymours’ party.
As at the Christmas ball, Drusilla’s beauty created a great sensation;
not, indeed, that she was more beautiful than Miss Lyon, but her beauty
was of a fresher type. As before, General Lyon was her first partner,
and Richard Hammond her second. And after that, there was great rivalry
among the candidates for the honor of her hand. But she danced only
quadrilles; and only with those presented to her by her uncle. This
ball, like all country balls was kept up all night. But General Lyon’s
age and Drusilla’s maternal solicitude, both rendered it expedient that
they should retire early. So a few minutes after twelve, the old
gentleman and his protégée took leave, promising that the coachman
should have orders to return at daylight and fetch Anna and Dick home.
After this followed other parties given by the country gentry. And to
all of them the Lyons were invited, and in all the invitations Drusilla
was included. And the lovely young wife was admired by all who saw her,
and beloved by those who came to know her well.
Occasionally, embarrassing questions were asked by those who had more
curiosity than tact, but they were always skilfully parried by the party
to whom they were put.
For instant, when some old crony would venture to ask the General how it
was that Mr. Alick had married this clergyman’s orphan daughter when all
the world supposed him to be about to marry his cousin Anna, the General
would answer as before:
“That projected marriage was a plan of mine and of my brother’s; and as
it was based upon our own wishes rather than on the affections of our
young people, it did not succeed, and did not deserve to do so. The aged
cannot choose for the young in affairs of the heart. My nephew married
this charming girl privately one year ago, and the ceremony was repeated
publicly in my house two months since. I gave the bride away. And I am
very much charmed with my niece. My granddaughter Anna, and my
grandnephew, Richard Hammond, will be united in a few months.”
“But where is the happy bridegroom now?” might be the next question.
“Alexander is in Washington negotiating the sale of real estate,” would
be the answer.
Sometimes a troublesome questioner, in the form of some young friend or
companion would assail Anna, in some such way as this:
“Well, we were never more surprised in our lives than when we found out
that Alick Lyon had married a parson’s daughter without a penny. We
thought you were going to take him, Anna?”
“But I preferred Dick,” would be Anna’s frank reply.
“Then I suppose he married the clergyman’s daughter in a fit of pique.”
“Not at all; it was in a fit of love.”
“And she quite penniless.”
“I beg your pardon, she is a very wealthy woman.”
“What! the clergyman’s daughter?”
“Yes, for she is a billionaire’s niece, and a sole heiress.”
“Oh! then it was a mercenary match?”
“Not at all, for he knew nothing of her fortune when he married her. And
now, also, please remember you are speaking of my cousins.”
“Beg your pardon, Anna! I mean no harm; and you know you and I are such
old, old friends!”
Very often it would be Richard Hammond who would be called to the
witness stand with a—
“Hillo, Dick! so you are a lucky dog after all! How was it now? Come,
tell us all about it! Did you cut Alick out with Anna, or did the pretty
little parson’s daughter cut Anna out with Alick?”
“Each one of us cut all the others out,” Dick would reply, with owl-like
gravity.
“Eh? what? stop, don’t go away! How can that be? We don’t understand!”
“Well, if you don’t that’s your look out. _I_ can’t make you
understand.”
And so Dick would turn off impertinent inquiry.
Fortunately, also, everywhere Drusilla’s face and manners inspired
perfect confidence and warm esteem. No one could look on her, or hear
her speak, and doubt her goodness.
“It is very queer. There’s a screw loose somewhere; but whoever may be
wrong, _she_ is all right,” was the verdict of the neighborhood in the
young wife’s favor.
Meanwhile a very brisk correspondence went on between General Lyon on
one part, and Messrs. Heneage and Kent (Drusilla’s lawyers) on the
other. The General soon convinced the legal gentlemen that Anna Drusilla
Lyon, born Stirling, was the heiress of whom they were in search.
Still, where so much was at stake, they were bound to be very cautious
and to receive nothing, not the very smallest fact, upon trust.
So, though General Lyon very seldom troubled Drusilla with this
correspondence, he did sometimes feel obliged to come to her for
information as to where a certain important witness was to be found; in
what cemetery a particular tombstone was to be looked for; or in what
parish church such a marriage had been solemnized, or such a baptism
administered.
And Drusilla’s prompt and pointed answers very much cleared and
expedited the business.
In a more advanced stage of affairs it seemed that she would have to go
up to Baltimore; but General Lyon would not hear of her taking any
trouble that he could save her; so he wrote to the legal gentlemen,
requesting one of the firm to come down to Old Lyon Hall in person, or
to send a confidential clerk, and promising to pay all expenses of
traveling, loss of time, and so forth.
In answer to this letter, Mr. Kent, the junior partner, arrived at the
old hall early in February.
He was armed with a formidable bag of documents and he was closeted all
day long with General Lyon in the study.
One can have no secrets from one’s lawyer any more than from one’s
physician or confessor; and so General Lyon felt constrained to tell Mr.
Kent of the existing estrangement between the heiress and her husband.
“And what I particularly wish,” said the General, confidentially and
earnestly, “is that the whole of this large inheritance, coming as it
does from _her_ family, may be secured to her separate use,
independently of her husband.”
“And that, you are aware, cannot be done, except though a process of
law. She must sue for a separate maintenance. Even in such a case I
doubt whether the court would adjudge her the _whole_ of this enormous
fortune, or even the half of it. Still it is her only resource,”
answered Lawyer Kent.
“A resource she will never resort to. It would be vain and worse than
vain to suggest it to her. She worships her husband; and it is through
no fault of hers that they are estranged. Indeed it was through
consideration for him that she was so reticent last year, as to raise
suspicions in your mind that her claim to the estate was an unjustly
assumed one.... No, Mr. Kent, we must take some other course to secure
the inheritance to her, and without saying a word to her on the subject
either.”
“There is no other way, sir, but by such a suit as I have suggested.”
“Pardon me I think there is. Mr. Alexander Lyon has deserted his wife
and child and failed to provide for them. Such is not the course of an
honorable man. Still, as some of the same sort of blood that warms my
own old heart runs also in his veins, there must be some little sense of
honor sleeping somewhere in his system. We must awaken it and appeal to
it. He must of his own free will make over all his right, title and
interest in this inheritance to his injured young wife.”
“Does he know of this inheritance, sir?”
“Not one word, I think.”
“Do you believe that he will act as you wish?”
“I have not the least doubt of it. Without this fortune of his wife, he
is as rich as Crœsus; and he is also as proud as Lucifer. Having
discarded her, he would not touch a penny of her money, if it was to
save his own life or hers. So it is not because I think he would waste,
or even use her means, that I wish her fortune settled upon herself, but
because I wish her to be totally independent of him and to be able to do
her own will with her own money.”
“I see,” said Mr. Kent. “Where is Mr. Alexander Lyon now?”
“In Washington City, where I would like you to call upon and apprise him
of this large inheritance and of our wishes in regard to it.”
“I will do so with pleasure. Pray give me your instructions at large,
and also a letter of introduction to Mr. Lyon.”
“I had almost sworn never to hold any communication with that man again.
But for his wife’s dear sake I will write the letter. And now Mr. Kent,
there is our first dinner-bell. Allow me to ring for a servant, who will
show you to a chamber prepared for you. I will await you here and take
you to the dining-room.”
The dust-covered lawyer bowed his thanks and followed the servant who
was called to attend him.
At dinner that day, the lawyer, for the first time met his beautiful
client, Mrs. Alexander Lyon. And with all his experience of mankind,
great was his wonder that any man in his sober senses could have
abandoned such a lovely young creature.
Mr. Kent stayed two days at Old Lyon Hall, and then, primed with
instructions and with a letter to Alexander, he left for Washington and
Baltimore.
It happened just as General Lyon had predicted.
Alexander, sulking at his apartments in one of the most fashionable
hotels in the Capital, received the lawyer’s visit and his uncle’s
letter.
He was immeasurably astonished at the announcement of his wife’s
inheritance of an enormous fortune. At first, indeed, he listened to the
intelligence with scornful incredulity; but when convinced beyond all
doubt of the truth, his amazement was unbounded. He had never before
heard of the California billionaire, and could not now realize the fact
that poor Drusilla was a great heiress. He scarcely succeeded in
concealing from the lawyer the excess of his amazement. He was,
literally, almost “stunned” by the news.
The lawyer’s time was precious; so, barely giving Mr. Alexander a minute
to recover his lost breath, and acting upon General Lyon’s instructions
he proposed to the husband to resign the whole of her newly-inherited
wealth to his discarded wife.
Alexander arose, a proud disdain curling his lips and flashing from his
eyes, and answered haughtily:
“Unquestionably, sir! Prepare the proper papers with your utmost
despatch. I had intended to sail for Europe in Saturday’s steamer, but I
will forfeit my passage and wait here until these deeds shall be
executed; for I could no more bear to hold an hour’s interest in her
inheritance than I could bear any other sort of ignominy. How soon can
the documents be ready?”
Mr. Kent could not tell within a day or two—lawyers never can, you
know. But he engaged to prepare them very early in the next week, in
time for Mr. Lyon to embark upon his voyage on the following Saturday.
And so Lawyer Kent went on his way to Baltimore musing:
“He is a splendid fellow, and she is a sweet young creature; they are an
admirable pair! What the mischief can have come between them?—ah, the
devil, of course!”
Mr. Kent was as good as his word. On Tuesday morning, he placed the
requisite deeds in the hands of Mr. Lyon, who, in the presence of
several witnesses and before a notary-public, formally signed, sealed,
and delivered them again into the custody of the lawyer.
And, on Thursday evening, Mr. Kent arrived at Old Lyon Hall, to announce
the successful termination of the whole business, and to congratulate
his client on her accession to one of the largest fortunes in America.
“And I think, my dear,” whispered General Lyon to his protégée, “that
you cannot better show your sense of these gentlemen’s zeal in your
cause than by making them your agents in the management of your
financial affairs.”
“I perfectly agree with you, my dear uncle. Tell them so, please,”
replied Drusilla.
And so it was arranged; and Mr. Kent went on his way rejoicing, “having
made a good thing of it.”
“And Alick has signed over to me all his material interest in my
fortune! Well, I know he did not need any part of it; but he would have
been welcome, oh, so heartily welcome, to the whole. At most, I only
should have wanted enough to buy back dear Cedarwood,” said Drusilla to
her gossip, Anna, as they sat together in the nursery.
“He did right. How _could_ he have done otherwise under the
circumstances? Even _you_, with all your loving faith, must have
despised him if, after forsaking you, he had taken any part of your
fortune,” said Anna.
Drusilla blushed intensely, at the bare supposition that her Alick could
do anything to make her loyal heart despise him, and she answered
warmly:
“But he did not do it! He would never do such a thing. If my Alick has
ever erred it has been under the influence of some great passion
amounting almost to madness! He would not do wrong in cold blood.”
Anna did not gainsay her. Miss Lyon had quite given up arguing with the
young wife on the subject of her husband’s merits. If Drusilla had
chosen to assert that Alexander was the wisest of sages, the bravest of
heroes and the best of saints, Anna would not openly have differed with
her. But now she turned the conversation from his merits to his
movements.
“Alick sails for Europe to-morrow,” she said.
“Yes, so Mr. Kent says. But do you know what steamer he goes in, Anna?
Mr. Kent did not happen to name it, and I shrank from asking him.”
“There is but one—the Erie. I suppose, of course, he goes on that.
However, on Monday we shall get the New York papers, and then we can
examine the list of passengers, and see if his name is among them,” said
Anna.
And with that answer the young wife had to rest satisfied.