The changed brides

by Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

With the advice of the nurse, Drusilla every morning took a short drive through the woods, and every afternoon a slow saunter into the flower garden.

Under happier auspices, this child of nature would have derived much enjoyment from the season and the scene. Even in her misery she felt something of their soothing and cheering influence.

And the beneficial effect of this course was soon apparent in her. Her paroxysms of grief became less frequent and violent. Her nerves grew calmer, and her brain clearer. With this healthy reaction came reflection. She thought upon the fixed past, the troubled present, and the doubtful future.

She now exonerated Alexander of all blame in his cruel neglect of her. He thought, she mused, that their marriage was illegal, and therefore he was just in his avoidance of her. He knew that the separation would go near to kill her, and therefore he was merciful in gently loosening the tie, instead of suddenly wrenching it apart. He felt that loving and tender letters would but melt and weaken her heart, and therefore he was wise in writing shortly and coldly. No doubt he suffered—poor Alick! as much as she did, though he would not add to her distress by telling her so. He had loved her so much! so much! and now he was heroic in his self-restraint for her sake! So she justified him to her own heart. For to honor him was with her even a greater necessity than to love him.

But she wondered that he did not tell her the reason why he thought his marriage with her was illegal. And more than all she wondered what that untold reason could be. Her conjectures wandered over every possible and impossible theory of the case:

First, that Alexander while at college, or while in Europe, had contracted a secret marriage; that when he wedded her he believed himself a widower; and that he had recently discovered the existence of his first wife. But this theory was no sooner conceived than rejected; for she remembered that he had been solemnly betrothed to his Cousin Anna from her earliest youth, and that upon his return from Europe he had been about to marry her, when the wedding was arrested by the death of his father.

Secondly, that this very pre-contract to Anna Lyon, might have rendered his marriage with her (Drusilla) illegal. But this was also set aside as unreasonable, for she recollected that the contract had been broken by Miss Lyon, as he himself had assured his bride.

Thirdly, that Alexander had discovered some very near blood relationship between himself and his wife that made their union unlawful. But this was at once repudiated as quite impossible, for she knew his genealogy, as well as her own, could be too distinctly and too far traced to admit of such an idea.

So imagination traversed the whole field of possibility and impossibility, and found nothing to invalidate her marriage.

Then she came to this conclusion: (and in it her instinct sided with her reason)—that there never had existed any sort of impediment to her union with her husband, and her marriage was perfectly lawful and righteous.