EXPOSURE.
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, “let _me_ explain this humiliating affair.”
“So _you_ were in it, were you?” fiercely exclaimed Alexander
confronting Richard. “All right! here is _one_, 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 is _my_ thunder! 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 solely _my_ affair. 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 name _is_ Lyon 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
to _you_ again! This is _my_ thunder, 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, notwithstanding her
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 this second marriage is no
more legal than the first one was; _less_ so, 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.
“I _beg_ his pardon,” said Anna, still looking at, still speaking to her
grandfather. “The license of which _he_ speaks I burned with my own
hands this evening. The license of which _I_ speak 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 is FALSE!—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 to be, 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 of _my niece_,
Mrs. Alexander Lyon. Her home shall be _here_, 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 arm _is_ a 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.