Chapter XII: A Really Happy Bride

How beautiful she looked, her conscious heart
Glowed in her cheek and yet she felt no wrong.
Oh, love, how perfect thy majestic art,
Strengthening the weak and trampling on the strong!
How self-deceitful is the sages’ part
Of mortals whom thy art hath led along.—BYRON.

I said that joy takes away the appetite as surely as grief does; and joy as well as grief banishes repose. Drusilla lay awake, in a happy reverie, until near morning, when she fell into fitful slumbers that soon deepened into dreamless sleep.

It was late in the forenoon when she awoke.

Ah! how many of us have awakened from such deep insensibility to the consciousness of some heavy but undefined and half-forgotten woe, that all too soon takes shape and distinctness to confront and overwhelm us!

Drusilla, on the contrary, awoke in the golden mist of some great but vague joy, that soon shaped itself into the thought that she was to be the wife of one she loved more than her own soul, and only less than her God.

But such exultation of the spirit seldom lasts long.

Before the girl had finished her simple morning toilet, her joy was sunk in remorseful tenderness that she could rejoice in anything so soon after her poor mother’s death. And she wept; but though less exultant, she was scarcely less happy.

She went down into the morning sitting-room. Alexander had waited for her, because he would not breakfast without her. He met her with a radiant smile, and he welcomed her with a warm embrace.

After breakfast, he spoke to her of his plans for the future. He told her that he wished their marriage to take place almost immediately.

She timidly expressed her feelings on this subject; the equal pain she would feel in opposing his wishes on the one hand, or, in marrying so soon after her mother’s death on the other.

“But why should you feel pain at the thought of marrying so soon after your poor mother’s death, my darling?” tenderly inquired her lover.

“It would seem heartless; it would seem disrespectful to her memory?” said the orphan.

“Not at all, my love. Daughters are sometimes, when expedient, married even beside the death-beds of their mothers. You have heard or read of such cases?”

“Yes.”

“Then why should you feel any scruple in marrying, if expedient, within a few weeks after your dear mother’s decease?”

“But _is_ it expedient?” she inquired.

“It is more. It is absolutely necessary. We must immediately marry, or——PART.”

This last word struck her like a shot, as he intended that it should. She started, drew back, and gazed at him in consternation.

“Drusilla, my innocent, ignorant child, does it not occur to you that it would be wrong for you, a young girl, and I, a young man, to live alone together, or with only servants in the house, unless we were married?” he gravely inquired.

She flushed crimson over face and neck, but had no word to reply.

“Drusilla, we must be married immediately,” he said, firmly, striking “while the iron was hot.”

“But—so soon after my poor mother’s death. To be made so happy, when I ought to be weeping for her,” faltered the girl.

“My darling, you shall weep for a year if you like, so that you weep in my arms, and give me a legal right to hold you there. Come, Drusilla! If our wedding were going to be a gay one, with fine dresses, and fine company and festivities, you might, indeed, object that it would be showing disrespect to your mother’s memory. But I propose that our wedding shall be a very very quiet one, as quiet as if it were solemnized at a death-bed. Come, what do you say to that?”

“Mr. Alexander, I know you would not lead me into the least departure from the duty I owe to the memory of my dear, lost mother. Decide for me, Mr. Alexander,” she said very sweetly.

“Then I will. But leave out the ‘Mr.,’ my darling. I do not like the formality of that word from your sweet lips. Shall I decide for you in _all_ things, my pet?”

“In all things, yes. Whom have I in the world but you?” she said, lifting her dove-like eyes confidingly to his face.

“No one indeed—thank heaven!” exclaimed Alexander, with triumph in the thought of how entirely this delicate, helpless, dependent child lay in his power and at his mercy.

The thought should have awakened his magnanimity; but, unhappily, it only flattered his selfishness.

He did decide all things for her. He decided that their marriage should be a strictly secret one; and he gave her plausible reasons why it must be so; but she needed for this, no other reason than his will. He decided that the house in Richmond was too gloomy in its associations of insanity, illness, and death, for their habitation, and that they should go to Washington to spend the winter. And he arranged that he himself should go in advance to the capital city and secure a home; and that on the receipt of a certain letter which he should write, she should secretly leave the house and join him in Washington.

To all this Drusilla readily agreed. In the fulness of her faith she had placed her fate in his hands and left it there.

This plan was carried out. The same day he told his old servant that urgent business called him away from home, and that he should leave for Baltimore the next morning.

Dorset, prompt and punctual, had his master’s portmanteau packed and his breakfast on the table by eight o’clock.

And Mr. Alexander left Richmond by the nine o’clock train for Baltimore, intending to take the next day’s train from the latter city to Washington.

Drusilla knew that she could not hear from him for three or four days, so she waited three days and then went to the post-office, where, for greater secrecy, her letters were to be left until called for. Here she found a letter—the first genuine love letter she had ever received. She had, from childhood, written many letters to Alexander, and received many from him—all, his and hers, filled with love, but not such love as this. Drusilla eagerly read it over in the office, and then, “all on fire with joy,” she hurried home and locked herself in her own room, to feast on her letter undisturbed and at leisure.

Every day she went to the post-office, and every day she received one of these ardent outpourings of love.

Alexander had been absent about ten days, when one morning on inquiry, she received a letter that summoned her at once to Washington.

That night Drusilla quietly packed her carpet bag with a few necessaries, and before day the next morning she slipped out of the house and took the early train for Washington.

The train reached Alexandria early in the afternoon, and Drusilla found her lover on the platform at the station.

“Come, dear love,” he said, “I have a carriage waiting. We must be married in this town, and then I will take you to Washington.”

In a flutter of delight and embarrassment she let him take her from the train and place her in the carriage.

He told the coachman to drive to Duke street, and as soon as the carriage was in motion, he caught his bride in his arms and pressed her to his bosom, amid the fondest caresses and tenderest words of endearment.

He was interrupted at length by the stopping of the coach, and the voice of the coachman inquiring:

“Where in Duke Street am I to drive, if you please, sir?”

“To the Reverend Mr. Hopper’s—the new Methodist preacher’s,” replied Alexander.

And a few more turns of the wheels brought the carriage to the house indicated.

Alexander lifted his trembling companion to the sidewalk, and then led her up the steps to the door of Mr. Hopper’s residence.

A servant answered his knock, and showed him into a plainly furnished parlor, where sat the preacher and the family, dressed in their Sunday’s best, and apparently waiting the bridal pair.

Mr. Hopper arose at once and shook hands with the bridegroom, and presented him to his—the preacher’s—mother and sisters.

Alexander, in turn, presented his bride to the ladies of the house.

Then, as no time was to be lost, the young pair stood up side by side; the ladies of the party arranged themselves as attendants and witnesses, and the ceremony that made Alexander Lyon and Drusilla Sterling man and wife was performed.

When the blessing had been pronounced, Alexander saluted his “child-wife” with the almost reverential tenderness due to her sacred isolation.

The preacher shook hands with both and wished them much joy.

Then the ladies of the family came up with their congratulations.

The old lady kissed the youthful bride with much feeling, saying:

“May the Lord bless you, poor, motherless little thing!—And you, sir,” she added, turning to the bridegroom—“Remember that her extreme youth and her recent orphanage claim a double amount of tenderness.”

“I know it, madam; I feel it; and I thank you for the interest you take in my little wife,” said Alexander.

He then slipped a hundred dollar note in the preacher’s hand, bowed his adieux to the whole party, and led his bride back to the carriage.

“I am glad the dear old lady gave us her blessing. It seemed to hallow our union, as much as the ceremony did. But I wonder how she knew I was an orphan?” said Drusilla, as they crossed the sidewalk to the carriage door.

“I told them as much of your circumstances as I deemed expedient to account for your coming unattended by ladies, and in a black dress,” said Alexander, as they paused while the driver got down and opened the door.

“In a black dress! So I was married in a black dress—a black bombazine and crape dress, at that. The very deepest sort of mourning!” exclaimed Drusilla, in a low tone and with a terrified look.

“Well, my darling, what of that?” smiled Alexander.

“Oh, it is considered a bad omen for any one, though but a guest, to wear a black dress, even a black silk one, to a wedding. And for a bride to be married in black, especially in deep mourning, is the worst of all omens.”

“Omens be—blessed! Are you so superstitious, little one?”

“Ah! who is not? I never met any one in my life who did not believe in this omen.”

“You’ve lived so long in this world, you have! and you’ve met, so many people!” laughed the bridegroom, as he put her into the carriage and seated himself beside her.

“Where am I to drive to, sir, if you please?” inquired the coachman, touching his hat, as he held the door open.

“Are your horses fresh?” demanded Mr. Lyon.

“Quite so, sir.”

“Can they take us to Washington? The distance by the river-road is nine miles, I think.”

“Bless you, yes, sir! why they can take you to Washington, which is nine miles, and afterwards to Bladensburg, which is nine more, with the greatest of ease.”

“All right—drive to Washington.”

The coachman closed the door, mounted to his box and started.

An hour’s drive along the beautiful wooded road, following the south bank of the Potomac, brought the travellers to the Long Bridge.

They crossed the river by that bridge and entered the city.

The near view of Washington from that point is not encouraging.

Alexander felt this as he bade his young companion look beyond the flats of the “island” and behold the distant and majestic hill upon the summit of which rises our Capitol.

The sun declined towards his setting, shone full upon the building’s western front, whose walls of white freestone and windows of crystal glass flashed back the rays, “in lines of dazzling light.”

Drusilla uttered an exclamation of pleasure; but was interrupted by the stopping of the carriage, and the appearance of the coachman at the door, inquiring:

“Where now, if you please, sir?”

“To Seventh street north, and out by that road to the suburbs of the city.”

The coachman re-mounted his box and started his horses once more. They crossed the canal bridge near the centre-market, and crossed Pennsylvania Avenue, and as they went on, Alexander pointed out to his companion, all the objects of interest within the range of their vision—a nearer view of the Capitol, then the General Post-Office, the National Patent Office, etc.

A half hour’s drive up Seventh street north, took them beyond the limits of the city, and into the wild, picturesque and beautiful suburbs.

The wilderness surroundings of our National Capitol have often been admired by strangers who are lovers of nature, and reproached by others who can see no beauty in anything but miles of brick walls and busy shops, or acres of ploughed fields and growing crops. We “to the manor born,” love the wild woods and rocks and waterfalls so near, as to be even within the limits of our city. A half hour’s drive from the Capitol in any direction will take the traveller into solitudes as deep as he can find anywhere west of the Alleghanies.

A half hour’s drive up Seventh street north took our happy pair quite into what seemed a country road.

It was bordered on the western side by evergreen woods, through which the last rays of the setting sun were shining and tipping every dark-hued leaf and twig with golden fire; and on the north by groves and fields and streams, with here and there a solitary, but cheerful cottage from whose windows the “household fires gleamed warm and bright.”

Presently, Alexander pulled the check-string and ordered the driver to turn into an obscure road or lane, leading into the cedar wood on the left.

“You have never asked me where I am taking you to, my darling,” said Alexander, when they had gone about a quarter of a mile into the woods.

“No; because my trust in you is so perfect.”

“Had you no curiosity?”

“Oh yes; but I thought you would tell me when you should see fit; and I knew that I should find out when we should reach the spot. I am very much pleased, however, that our home will be in the country.”

“Not the country, darling, though it looks so much like it; only the suburbs of the city.”

“It is all the same to me, and I am so glad we are to live among the trees.”

“I knew you would be, love, and so I chose our home in this neighborhood.”

“But shall you not be lonesome, so far from the city; you, who are so fond of plays and concerts and operas?”

“No, mine own. I shall be lonesome nowhere, with you by my side. Besides, thirty minutes’ drive would take us any evening to any place of amusement we might wish to attend in the city. But here we are at home!” he said, pulling the check-string and stopping the carriage at a rustic gate that crossed the lane in the very midst of the wood.

Some one issued from a very small porter’s lodge on the right and opened the gate. They entered upon a semicircular drive, bordered on each side by cedar-trees, that led them up to the front of a picturesque cottage ornée, built in a sort of composite style.

From every pretty latticed window of this little dwelling, the lights of fires and of lamps gleamed warm welcome.

“Oh, what a lovely little wildwood home!” exclaimed Drusilla in delight, as Alexander lifted her from the carriage and seated her on a bench of the little rustic porch.

“‘Business before pleasure,’ my darling,” he said, leaving her there, and going back to dismiss the carriage.

He was happy and therefore he was extravagant. He never asked the coachman the price of his services, but put in his hand a twenty dollar bank note, about twice the amount of his fare; and when the latter fumbled in his pocket-book, said quickly:

“No, I don’t want any change! It is now about five o’clock; you can easily get back to Alexandria by seven. Good night.”

The coachman was profuse in his thanks, and hoped to have the pleasure of driving his honor often. And he mounted his box and drove off, no doubt wishing that he could have a bridal party for a fare every day of his life.

And the bridegroom led his bride into the house.