Chapter XLII: Drusilla’s Destination

One human hand my own to take,
One human heart my own to raise,
One loving human voice to break
The silence of my days.

Saviour, if this wild prayer be wrong
And what I seek I may not find,
Oh, make more hard, and stern, and strong
The frame-work of my mind!—OWEN MEREDITH.

Having finished reading all the letters and papers that had been submitted to her examination, in proof of the perfidy of her husband, Drusilla sat on, for a few moments, pale, still, and mute. She would not weep now—the fountain of her tears was dry at last. She could scarcely feel—her heart was stunned almost to insensibility.

Now she knew the very worst. Now she could not doubt that her husband had deserted her and that he meditated the crime of marriage with his cousin Anna.

Yes, the crime!

For, notwithstanding all that Richard Hammond had said and thought to the contrary, she knew that she herself not only ought to have been, in right—but really was, in fact—the true wife of Alexander Lyon; and that it was but a slight legal informality, unsuspected by her and even by him at the time of their marriage, of which he was now about to avail himself in breaking the sacred bonds that bound him to his young wife, in order to unite himself to his wealthy cousin. She knew that this intended act would be a sin, and she feared that it might be construed into a felony. There was an ugly word in the dictionary called “bigamy,” and its penalty was uglier still—the state’s prison. To save Alexander in his moral insanity, from such guilt and such degradation, she resolved to go to Old Lyon Hall and stop the intended marriage, even though the adventure should cost her her life.

“And the wedding is to be celebrated on the evening of the fifteenth, and this is the morning of the fourteenth, and I have but little more than twenty-four hours to do all that must be done to save him!” she said, speaking her mind aloud, to the infinite surprise and alarm of Leo, who was still standing before her and who now looked as if he thought his mistress had gone crazy,—and “well she might,” he said to himself, as he gazed on her where she sat with her hands clasped to her temples.

Drusilla reflected intently for a few moments. There were several ways of reaching Old Lyon Hall,—one was to go by steamer down the Potomac to Chesapeake Bay and up James River to the Stormy Petrel landing, and then by turnpike to the Porcupine Mountain; another was to take the railway train from Alexandria to Richmond, and then the stage-coach across the country. Both these routes were favored by the Lyon family when they had leisure and were travelling for recreation. But both required two days of travel.

Drusilla saw that she must take the third, which was the shortest if the roughest route—the old line of stagecoaches running between Washington city and Western Virginia. It is true this road was very dangerous, especially at night. It crossed the Blue Ridge, the Shenandoah, and the Alleghany mountains. It wound around terrible heights where there were many hundred feet of perpendicular rock above and below, with little width of way between. Once in a while you heard of a coach being crushed by the fall of the rocks from above, or dashed to pieces by going over the side of the precipice. Upon the whole this was not a favored route with travellers who could avoid it. But Drusilla resolved to take it because it was the shortest to her place of destination, and in less than twenty-four hours it would take her to a little mountain hamlet within ten miles of Old Lyon Hall. True, she might meet with an accident on the road, but if she should lose her life she might serve Alick by that means as well or better than by preventing his marriage with Anna, since if she (Drusilla) were dead, that marriage would be no longer criminal.

“Leo,” she inquired, looking up at the anxious boy, “what is the hour?”

Leo glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantle-piece, and answered:

“It is nearly one, ma’am.”

“Do you know what time the night coach for Western Virginia leaves Washington?”

“I don’t know what time it leaves Washington, ma’am, but it passes through Alexandry at five.”

“Then it must start at about three or half-past. Leo! hurry down stairs; tell your mother and Pina to come to me immediately. Then go to the stable and put the horses to the carriage, and prepare yourself to drive me to town, and be as quick as you possibly can; do you hear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” answered the amazed boy, making his awkward bow, and going on his errand.

Drusilla, with a marvellous new life in her system, arose and went to her bureau drawers and began hastily to select certain indispensable conveniences for her journey, and to pack them into a travelling bag.

Ah! at that moment, and under those circumstances what painful feelings that pretty Turkey morocco bag awakened; for “sorrow’s crown of sorrow is the memory of happier days.”

The bag had been given to her first, by old Mrs. Lyon, when that lady had hoped to take her favorite down to old Lyon Hall to the wedding of Alick and Anna. And well Drusilla remembered how much she was pleased with the gift that combined beauty with utility; how much she admired its construction, with its various pockets and recesses for the reception of all sorts of travelling necessaries. But she never went down to that wedding, which never took place, as you already know.

Next, nearly two years afterward, she had packed this very bag for her journey to meet Alick and to be married to him, herself.

And now she was packing it to go and prevent his marriage with his cousin. Truly, the little bag was associated with weddings for good or ill.

While Drusilla was stowing away combs, brushes, soap, cologne, napkins, handkerchiefs, chamber-slippers, etc., into her travelling bag, and reflecting on all its happy and unhappy associations, she was interrupted by the hasty entrance of Pina and Pina’s mammy, both with their eyes wide open in astonishment; for Leo had startled them both with the announcement that his mistress had ordered the carriage quite suddenly to go the city.

“And now, ma’am, what is all this, to be sure?” inquired “mammy,” with the authority, not to say the insolence, belonging even to the best of her sisterhood.

“What is what, nurse?” questioned Drusilla, with calm dignity.

“That boy—which I believe he’s lying, and if he is I will chastise him well for it—says how you has ordered the carriage to go to Washington immediate; which I know, ma’am, you would never think of doing nothing so unprudent; and I’ll give it to Leo well for scaring of me with his lies.”

“Leo has told you no falsehood. I have ordered the carriage to take me to the city,” said Drusilla, calmly.

“Well, ma’am, I hope you’ll follow my ’vice and think better of it, and do no such undiscreet thing,” said mammy, grimly.

“I have no choice, nurse. This is not with me a matter of will, but of necessity. I must go to Washington to take the night coach for Western Virginia.”

At this announcement, mammy stared for a moment in speechless consternation. Then lifting both her hands, she exclaimed:

“To take the night coach for Wes’ Wirginy! Well, Lord! And is you crazy?”

“No, not crazy; though I know how strange my purpose must seem to you,” answered Drusilla, quietly, as she folded some white linen collars, and placed them in her bag.

“And DOES you know the dangers?”

“Of the road? Well, I recollect that there was a coach upset on the Hogback Mountain, and nine passengers killed or wounded, only last spring.”

“I don’t mean the road, though that’s as bad as bad can be, to my sartain knowledge, which has travelled of it once. I mean your siteration, there! do you know the dangers of _that_, a bumping and a thumping, and a tumbling and a rumbling over them rocky roads? I say, do you know the dangers of _that_?”

“No, I don’t, nurse; I only know that whatever they are, I must face them,” said Drusilla, so calmly and so firmly, that the old woman knew at once that it would be utterly vain to try to turn her from her purpose.

“But, for goodness sake, _why_ must you go?”

“From imminent necessity, nurse, that I can’t stop now to explain. I wish you to be kind enough to pack up under clothing and other necessaries enough to last me a week. Pina, empty the little red trunk and bring it here to nurse.”

“But, for patience’s sake, whar is you going, child?”

“I am going to see my husband.”

“You are going to your death!”

“Perhaps. If so, I shall serve him just as well,” murmured Drusilla, in a low tone.

“But, child, tell me, what’s the great ’cessity? What for must you go to see your husband sich a long distance over sich roads in your siteration, and to the rist of your life?”

“He is—in imminent danger,” said Drusilla, evasively.

“Lor! and that was the bad news as that gentleman brought you?”

“Yes, it was.”

“And it overcomed you so! Well, Lord! to think of the tender heart! But what is the matter of him, honey?—pleurisy, I shouldn’t wonder! That’s most in general what ails people this time of the year. Is it pleurisy, honey?”

“No, not that; but do not stop now to ask questions. I have no time to answer them. Here is Pina with the trunk. And here are my keys. Go to my wardrobes and bureaus, and select what is needful for my journey. And pray be quick about it, for I have no time to lose.”

“Well, but honey, hear me for one minute first. It may be that he is very ill, but he may get over it, ’out your gwine to see him. Yes, and if you go, he may get well and you may die. And anyway, I don’t see the use of two lives and maybe three lives risted instead of one. Take my ’vice, honey, and stay quietly at home.”

“Nurse, listen. I should suffer a thousand times more in _mind_ to stay here, than I possibly could to go the journey that I have fully resolved to take,” said Drusilla.

“Well, honey, in either case your life must be risted, I suppose; and of course you have got a right to take your choice _how_ it shall be risted. So now, all I got to do is to make your journey as comfor’ble as I can.”

“Thank you. That is indeed all that you can do,” said Drusilla.

“But mind, honey, _I gwine long with you_,” said mammy, with grim resolution.

“You? You going, nurse? I have not asked you!” exclaimed Drusilla, in astonishment.

“No, honey, you haven’t axed me; which I believe you never even thought of so doing. But if you must travel—by night, too—surely you’d never think of travelling alone in your state of health.”

“That is true—I never thought of it.”

“Which it seems to me you never do think of yourself, honey.”

“But it is a hard journey for you to undertake. Would not Pina do as well to go with me?”

“Hi, honey, what good Pina going to be, case you taken ill on the road? No, child, long as you _will_ go, you must consent to take the ole ’oman along to look after you.”

“I believe you are right; quite right; and I thank you very much. But now you must let Pina pack that little trunk for me, while you go and get ready to attend me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And be very quick, nurse. See, it is half-past one. It will take us an hour to ride to Washington, and I wish to be there by three o’clock, so as to make sure of the coach.”

“All right, ma’am. I will be ready in half an hour.”

And the old woman hurried away, not ill pleased to vary the monotony of her life at Cedarwood by a journey, this fine weather, into the mountainous regions of Virginia. It is true that this was a measure she would not have recommended to her patient; but, since that lady was resolved upon it, “mammy” made the best of it, and determined to draw what good she might out of the change of scene and circumstances.

In just ten minutes mammy returned to the room, dressed for her journey, and equipped with a carpet bag that contained all her travelling belongings.

“You have been very quick,” said Drusilla, approvingly.

“Yes, honey; which it is my pride and ambition always so to be. I had half an hour; that’s thirty minutes—three times ten. The first ten minutes I gives to getting myself ready. Now, the next ten minutes I gives to something else,” said mammy, speaking hastily, and, _while_ speaking, drawing from a closet a small red morocco trunk, which she proceeded to pack with a full supply of body linen and all the necessaries of a baby’s first toilet, setting the baby’s basket in the tray in the top of the trunk.

“What is all that for?” inquired Drusilla, who was busy hooking up her travelling dress.

“Never you mind, honey. You go on a fixing of yourself, and leave me alone. And there, the second ten minutes is up!” said the old woman, as she fastened down and locked the trunk.

“But what is that for?” persisted Drusilla.

“Lor’, honey, does you forget? There’s three of us going this journey. And that trunk is for the third one. And now I have got only the last ten minutes left, and I must give that to something else still,” said mammy, as she flew down stairs.

Meanwhile Drusilla, while putting on her cloak, bonnet and gloves, gave Pina many charges about the care of the house, the birds, the dogs, and all the pets of the establishment, which would be in her charge during the absence of the mistress.

And Pina promised the utmost fidelity; but begged her lady to order Leo to sleep in the house, because she, Pina, would be afraid to sleep there alone.

Drusilla had but just promised this, when “mammy” reappeared with a large and well-filled luncheon basket.

“How thoughtful you are. And how thankful I ought to be that I have you to think for me and to take care of me at this crisis,” said Drusilla, with feeling.

“Lor, honey, what’s the use of my having lived fifty year in this world if I _aint_ thoughtful? And what call you to be thankful to me, for doing of that which it is my bounden duty to do, seeing I’m paid for it?” replied mammy, laughing, for her spirits were rising with the excitement of the journey before her.

“Ah, nurse, there are some services that cannot be purchased or paid for, and yours are of that sort.”

“Not a bit, honey. And now the time is up and we’s all ready. And here’s everything you can possibly want. And Leo, he told me to tell you as the carriage was waiting.”

“Thank you; we will go then.”

“Yes, honey.——And, now, Pina, you be good gal and take care of the house while your missus is gone,” said the nurse, turning to her daughter.

“Yes, mammy. When will missus be home?”

“When you sees her, you fool; and not a minute sooner. And mind you have everything ready for her when she comes; fire made in her room and all; mind that, or it will be the worse for you.”

“Yes, mammy.”

Drusilla gave a last glance around the room, so full of pleasing and painful memories—the room which she felt she might never see again; and then, silently commending herself to Providence, she left it and led the way down stairs.

The carriage stood ready; the luggage was piled on behind. Leo had the door open and the steps down. Drusilla entered, followed by her nurse. Both took a kind last leave of Pina, who thrust her head and hands in at the window for the purpose. And Leo cracked his whip and started his horses.