DIFFICULTIES OF DECEPTION.
Ah, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we venture to deceive.—SCOTT.
Alexander had his troubles too, and they were not the less trying
because he had brought them on himself by his own wrong-doing—rather the
more so, in fact, since remorse was added to regret, and the loss of
self-respect to the loss of domestic peace.
He was learning by personal experience that “the way of the transgressor
is hard.”
He found it very difficult to play two parts and live in two places at
the same time.
This was the way his day passed. He usually arose at ten o’clock in the
morning, with a bad head-ache and a worse heart-ache, made a quick
toilet and a poor breakfast, then threw himself into the saddle and rode
away as fast as his horse’s feet could carry him.
He always contrived to be at his rooms in his hotel by eleven o’clock in
the forenoon, lest his uncle should call for him and find him out. And
always on entering his chamber he would tumble his bed and slop his
wash-stand to deceive the servants of the hotel into the idea that he
had slept there; for he was in constant dread lest his uncle should
discover that he passed the night elsewhere.
To carry on the deception, every day he breakfasted at the hotel table,
and he dined with his uncle and cousin. And every evening he accompanied
Anna to some place of amusement, where she was always the most admired
beauty in the room, and where he was the most envied man, because it was
generally understood that he was her betrothed husband.
He seldom returned home before one o’clock, and sometimes not before
three in the morning.
You perceive by this how little time he had to bestow on his young wife.
Meanwhile Drusilla was more lonely than words can tell.
Just think of it.
It was the depth of winter.
She lived in a lone house in a thick wood. She had no companion in the
house, no acquaintance in the neighborhood, and no correspondent in the
world. She never made a visit, or had a visitor, or wrote a letter, or
received one. Her one object in life was her husband; her one interest
in the day his return at night; and if he had given her a little more of
his company, if only an evening now and then, she could have been
happy;—or if, when he did come home, he could have been more cheerful in
her presence, she would have been less miserable.
But, ah! friends, Alexander—as is always the case with an evil-doer—went
on from bad to worse.
And when morning after morning he gulped down his coffee in hot haste,
and hurried away from his home, in eager anxiety; and when night after
night he returned in the small hours, too cold, tired and harassed to
notice the preparations she had made for his comfort, or to share the
supper she had kept waiting for him, or even to bestow a kiss or a
smile, or a look upon her; when, in fact, he seemed to have become
estranged from her; then, indeed, her heart failed, her beauty faded,
and she hung her head like a flower drooping in the cold.
She tried very hard to keep up her spirits and preserve her beauty for
his sake and for her own. For more than all earthly things she wished to
retain his love. And she remembered how in her childhood, he had scolded
her for crying, telling her that it made her ugly, and that he could not
possibly love an ugly little girl; and how she had almost suffocated
herself then, in her efforts to suppress her sobs, lest she should grow
ugly and lose his love.
Then he had been a mere thoughtless youth, teasing a timid child who
loved him; now he was or seemed a heartless man, torturing a sensitive
young woman, who had given her whole life into his hands.
Yet these were not her thoughts of him; she did not blame him even to
herself; she was more ingenious in finding excuses for his conduct, than
even he would have been. But she was right in trying to be always bright
and beautiful, so as to retain his love, since she valued it so
highly—for he _did_ dislike ugly and sorrowful faces.
And at length, when her powers of self-control were exhausted—when
loneliness, late hours, fatigue of body and distress of mind had done
their work upon her heart and frame, and broken down her health and
spirits—her pale face, heavy eyes, languid motions and faltering tones
irritated him, for they were so many severe, though silent and
involuntary reproaches to him.
“As if it were not enough,” he sometimes said to himself, “that for her
sake, I have foolishly given up the most beautiful woman of the day, and
sacrificed the most brilliant prospects of my life, and worse than all,
placed myself in a false and degrading position, but that now, she must
make me more miserable still, with her moping manners.”
But here his faithful conscience always rebuked him for his injustice,
and awakened his memory to remind him, that his poor young wife herself,
child as she was, had at the time of his proposal for her hand, set all
these possible regrets before him, and had warned him to pause and
reflect, before taking the irrevocable step of making her his wife; and
that he himself had been strong to overcome her hesitation and stubborn
to maintain his own will.
And then in a fit of remorse, he would break out upon himself with:
“I am certainly the most infernal villain that Heaven ever let live!” or
words to the same effect.
In these moods he would go and buy something to take home to Drusilla,
some set of jewels, piece of lace, rich shawl, gay dress, or other
article of vanity.
But soon he saw that his child bride, who was still wearing her first
mourning for her dead mother, valued these things not in themselves, but
only as proofs of his thought for her.
And besides, how could jewels and fine clothes console the loving young
wife for the lost society of her husband?
But Alexander was provoked, that his efforts to please her were so
utterly unavailing. He did not reflect that if she had been a vain,
selfish woman, and had loved herself more than she loved him, she would
have been happy in his _presents_, and indifferent to his _presence_.
But as she was neither vain, nor selfish, as she loved him rather than
herself, she pined amidst all her plenty, because he was almost always
absent from her.
This pining became evident in her appearance, notwithstanding all her
efforts to conceal it.
And sometimes it exasperated him so much that it was with difficulty he
could restrain himself from reproaching her, and thus adding to the sum
of his own injustice and her misery.
Often, also, his temper was severely tried in town by what _he_ called
the difficulties of his position, but what any one else might have
called the hardships of the transgressor.
One day especially, when he rode into the city a little later than
usual, he found his uncle at his room waiting for him.
“Where the deuce is it, Alick, that you gallop off to every morning of
your life?” inquired the old gentleman, who had somehow or other got a
hint that his nephew rode _into_ Washington every morning, but had no
suspicion that he slept _out_ of the city every night. “Where the deuce
is it that you go?” he repeated.
Alick, taken by surprise, hesitated before he could summon the presence
of his mind, and reply:
“Oh, I make a practice of taking a gallop through the morning air for my
health.”
“Umph, umph, umph!” growled the old gentleman. “You look more like you
made a practice of sitting over your wine until four or five, or six
o’clock in the morning, for your illness.”
Alick laughed rather lugubriously, it must be confessed, for he saw that
the old gentleman’s suspicions were aroused, although, of course, they
must have been of the vaguest character.
“Well,” said the general, “you have got a busy day before you, Alick,
and no time to lose. First, you have to escort Anna to St. John’s
Church, to be present at the wedding of Senor Don Emillio Arayo, the son
of the Brazilian Minister, with Mademoiselle Marie de Courcey, niece of
the French Ambassador. All the world is going, and Anna is going with
them, of course.”
“Satan fly away with the Spanish puppy and the French ninny!” was
Alick’s secret thought. But he bowed, and said:
“Sir, I shall be most happy.”
“And then you are engaged to dine at Major General Scott’s. And after
that to go and take Anna, to see the great new tragedienne, Mrs. Starrs,
in Lady Macbeth; after which you sup with me and Anna.”
“What a fussy old Polonius uncle is getting to be, to be sure! I really
think the old man is falling into his dotage,” thought Alick within
himself. But he answered aloud:
“A very pleasant programme, sir.”
“Aye, I suppose you young people think it so. I confess I don’t. But,
Alick, my boy, I must beg you to forego your gallop to-morrow morning.
My old friend—and your late father’s oldest friend—Commodore Storms, is
coming to breakfast with me at eight o’clock, and, of course, you must
join us. It will be the only chance you will have of seeing him, as he
is only passing through the city on his way south, and leaves by the
mid-day train to-morrow.”
Alexander stared in dismay, and then inquired:
“Could I not see him to-day, sir?”
“No, he is gone with a party to visit Mount Vernon. Besides, what time
have you to do any thing to-day but what is appointed for you?”
“None indeed,” said Alexander with an involuntary sigh, which did not
escape the notice of the old man.
“Does it afflict you so much then?” enquired the general.
“What sir?”
“The idea of your giving up your mysterious morning ride for a breakfast
with two old Revolutionary relics like the commodore and myself,”
answered the general, fixing a scrutinizing gaze upon his nephew’s face.
“Oh no, sir! I—was thinking only how much rather I would see my father’s
old friend sooner than later,” answered Alexander, again true in the
letter but false in the spirit of his reply.
And so Mr. Lyon concluded that there was no alternative for him but to
stay in town all night as well as all day. And he did so, fully carrying
out the programme sketched for him by his uncle, but feeling all the
while great pain from the thought that his poor lonely young wife would
sit up the whole night waiting anxiously for his return.
The next day was quite as much taken up with engagements as any former
day had been; and so it was long past midnight when Alick got home.
He found Drusilla wan and wasted with waiting and watching there two
days and nights of suspense and anxiety; but he saw no look of reproach
in her gentle eyes, heard no word of blame from her sweet lips.
He perceived her sufferings and was angry with himself for causing them,
and he began some lame explanation of his absence.
But she saw his embarrassment and stopped his faltering words with a
kiss, and she said:
“Dear Alick, it is enough that you are here again to make me happy. You
do not need to render your poor little wife, who has not much wisdom of
her own, an account of your actions.”
And she told him the little news of the two days at home, and she
laughed and jested and served his supper with her old cheerfulness and
alacrity.
The next morning Alexander went to town with the deliberate purpose of
ending his own perplexities and his wife’s sufferings, by doing the
right thing and confessing his secret marriage, to his uncle.
But ah! it always happened whenever an especial fit of repentance moved
Alexander to amendment, something occurred to throw him back upon his
evil course and confirm him in it.
So it was on this morning.
He strolled into a reading-room and sat down at one of the tables and
took up a paper to look at the news of the day. He had not been there
more than five minutes when he heard his cousin Anna’s name mentioned in
connection with his own. Impulsively he looked up and listened.
The speakers, seated at a table near, were strangers to him, as he
evidently was to them, since they discussed his private affairs so
freely in his hearing.
“I tell you there is not a word of truth in it. It is all a mistake. It
is a false report. The beautiful Anna cares no more for young Lyon than
she does for you or me. If she cares for any one on earth, it is for
that handsome fellow, Dick Hammond, who has just come into a great
fortune,” said the first speaker.
“That may all be quite true. I am not saying who she cares for, but who
she is going to marry. She may not care a pin for Lyon, and she may
adore Hammond; but for all that she must marry Lyon and give Hammond the
goby, since such was the will of the two ancient landed proprietors, her
grandfather and granduncle, who long ago decided that their large
estates should be united,” said the second speaker.
“Well, if I were the lady’s choice, Dick Hammond, I think I should set a
very serious impediment between the union of those said estates.”
“And if I were the betrothed lover, Alexander Lyon, I would break Dick’s
neck for his presumption,” said the last speaker, as both arose from the
table and strolled away.
Alexander’s anger and jealousy were both aroused, and his good
resolutions were put to flight. He arose and followed the two speakers,
but they had disappeared in the crowd.
The days of duelling are past, thank Heaven; else Alexander would have
liked to have sought out and called out one or both of these male
gossips and exchanged a shot with either or both of them at ten paces.
As it was he could only let his anger cool down and then acknowledge to
himself that they had really neither done nor said anything very wrong.
They had only unconsciously wounded his self-love and aroused his
jealousy.
Anna Lyon, his beautiful cousin, had always been intended for himself,
he said, and Dick Hammond knew it. And even now, for all Dick Hammond
knew to the contrary, he, Alick Lyon, had the exclusive right to Anna’s
regards.
How then did he, Dick Hammond, dare to set himself up as a lover of
Anna, and a rival of her betrothed?
Yes! and how dared Anna, in the face of her parent’s will and her own
engagements, receive and favor him as such?
Alick ground his teeth with rage and jealousy.
“They must never know, they _shall_ never know, but that my claims to
Anna’s hand are as good as they ever were!—At least they shall not know
it until all possibility of Hammond’s union with Anna is destroyed,”
said Alick to himself.
And that day he devoted himself with lover-like assiduity to his Cousin
Anna. And that night he remained in town all night.
Alas, for Drusilla! She had fallen upon still darker days; for now she
never even knew when waiting up for her husband, whether he would return
or not.
Still—still she strove against despondency and hoping against hope,
assumed some cheerfulness.