Daisy Brooks: or, A Perilous Love

Mrs. Tudor was a kind-hearted little soul. She tried every possible means of diverting Daisy’s attention from the absorbing sorrow which seemed consuming her.

She read her choice, sparkling paragraphs from the papers, commenting upon them, in a pretty, gossiping way.

Nothing seemed to interest the pretty little creature, or bring a smile to the quivering, childish lips.

“Ah! here is something quite racy!” she cried, drawing her chair up closer to the bedside. “A scandal in high life. This is sure to be entertaining.”

Mrs. Tudor was a good little woman, but, like all women in general, she delighted in a spicy scandal.

A handsome stranger had married a beautiful heiress. For a time all went merry as a marriage-bell. Suddenly a second wife appeared on the scene, of which no one previously knew the existence. The husband had sincerely believed himself separated by law from wife number one, but through some technicality of the law, the separation was pronounced illegal, and the beautiful heiress bitterly realized to her cost that she was no wife.

“It must be a terrible calamity to be placed in such a predicament,” cried Mrs. Tudor, energetically. “I blame the husband for not finding out beyond a doubt that he was free from his first wife.”

A sudden thought seemed to come to Daisy, so startling it almost took her breath away.

“Supposing a husband left his wife, and afterward thought her dead, even though she were not, and he should marry again, would it not be legal? Supposing the poor, deserted wife knew of it, but allowed him to marry that some one else, because she believed he was unhappy with herself, would it not be legal?” she repeated in an intense voice, striving to appear calm.

“I can scarcely understand the question, my dear. I should certainly say, if the first wife knew her husband was about to remarry, and she knew she was not separated from him by law or death, she was certainly a criminal in allowing the ceremony to proceed. Why, did you ever hear of such a peculiar case, my dear?”

“No,” replied Daisy, flushing crimson. “I was thinking of Enoch Arden.”

“Why, there is scarcely a feature in Enoch Arden’s case resembling the one you have just cited. You must have made a mistake?”

“Yes; you are right. I have made a mistake,” muttered Daisy, growing deadly pale. “I did not know. I believed it was right.”

“You believed what was right?” asked Mrs. Tudor, in amazement.

“I believed it was right for the first wife to go out of her husband’s life if she had spoiled it, and leave him free to woo and win the bride he loved,” replied Daisy, pitifully embarrassed.

“Why, you innocent child,” laughed Mrs. Tudor, “I have said he would not be free as long as the law did not separate him from his first wife, and she was alive. It is against the law of Heaven for any man to have two wives; and if the first wife remained silent and saw the sacred ceremony profaned by that silence, she broke the law of Heaven–a sin against God beyond pardon. Did you speak?” she asked, seeing Daisy’s white lips move.

She did not know a prayer had gone up to God from that young tortured heart for guidance.

Had she done wrong in letting Rex and the whole world believe her dead? Was it ever well to do a wrong that good should come from it?

And the clear, innocent, simple conscience was quick to answer, “No!”

Poor Daisy looked at the position in every possible way, and the more she reflected the more frightened she became.

Poor, little, artless child-bride, she was completely bewildered. She could find no way out of her difficulty until the idea occurred to her that the best person to help her would be John Brooks; and her whole heart and soul fastened eagerly on this.

She could not realize she had lain ill so long. Oh, Heaven, what might have happened in the meantime, if Rex should marry Pluma? She would not be his wife because she– who was a barrier between them–lived.

CHAPTER XXXV

Daisy had decided the great question of her life. Yes, she would go to John Brooks with her pitiful secret, and, kneeling at his feet, tell him all, and be guided by his judgment.

“I can never go back to Rex,” she thought, wearily. “I have spoiled his life; he does not love me; he wished to be free and marry Pluma.”

“You must not think of the troubles of other people, my dear,” said Mrs. Tudor, briskly, noting the thoughtful expression of the fair young face. “Such cases as I have just read you are fortunately rare. I should not have read you the scandals. Young girls like to hear about the marriages best. Ah! here is one that is interesting–a grand wedding which is to take place at Whitestone Hall, in Allendale, to-morrow night. I have read of it before; it will be a magnificent affair. The husband-to-be, Mr. Rexford Lyon, is very wealthy; and the bride, Miss Pluma Hurlhurst, is quite a society belle–a beauty and an heiress.”

Poor Daisy! although she had long expected it, the announcement seemed like a death-blow to her loving little heart; in a single instant all her yearning, passionate love for her handsome young husband awoke into new life.

She had suddenly awakened to the awful reality that her husband was about to marry another.

“Oh, pitiful Heaven, what shall I do?” she cried, wringing her hands. “I will be too late to warn them. Yet I must–I must! It must not be!” she cried out to herself; “the marriage would be wrong.” If she allowed it to go on, she would be guilty of a crime; therefore, she must prevent it.

Pluma was her mortal enemy. Yet she must warn her that the flower-covered path she was treading led to a precipice. The very thought filled her soul with horror.

She wasted no more time in thinking, she must act.

“I can not go to poor old Uncle John first,” she told herself. “I must go at once to Pluma. Heaven give me strength to do it. Rex will never know, and I can go quietly out of his life again.”

The marriage must not be! Say, think, argue with herself as she would, she could not help owning to herself that it was something that must be stopped at any price. She had not realized it in its true light before. She had had a vague idea that her supposed death would leave Rex free to marry Pluma. That wrong could come of it, in any way, she never once dreamed.

The terrible awakening truth had flashed upon her suddenly; she might hide herself forever from her husband, but it would not lessen the fact; she, and she only, was his lawful wife before God and man. From Heaven nothing could be hidden.

Her whole heart seemed to go out to her young husband and cling to him as it had never done before.

“What a fatal love mine was!” she said to herself; “how fatal, how cruel to me!”

To-morrow night! Oh, Heaven! would she be in time to save him? The very thought seemed to arouse all her energy.

“Why, what are you going to do, my dear?” cried Mrs. Tudor, in consternation, as Daisy staggered, weak and trembling, from her couch.

“I am going away,” she cried. “I have been guilty of a great wrong. I can not tell you all that I have done, but I must atone for it if it is in my power while yet there is time. Pity me, but do not censure me;” and sobbing as if her heart would break, she knelt at the feet of the kind friend Heaven had given her and told her all.

Mrs. Tudor listened in painful interest and amazement. It was a strange story this young girl told her; it seemed more like a romance than a page from life’s history.

“You say you must prevent this marriage at Whitestone Hall.” She took Daisy’s clasped hands from her weeping face, and holding them in her own looked into it silently, keenly, steadily. “How could you do it? What is Rexford Lyon to you?”

Lower and lower drooped the golden bowed head, and a voice like no other voice, like nothing human, said:

“I am Rex Lyon’s wife, his wretched, unhappy, abandoned wife.”

Mrs. Tudor dropped her hands with a low cry of dismay.

“You will keep my secret,” sobbed Daisy; and in her great sorrow she did not notice the lady did not promise.

In vain Mrs. Tudor pleaded with her to go back to her husband and beg him to hear her.

“No,” said Daisy, brokenly. “He said I had spoiled his life, and he would never forgive me. I have never taken his name, and I never shall. I will be Daisy Brooks until I die.”

“Daisy Brooks!” The name seemed familiar to Mrs. Tudor, yet she could not tell where she had heard it before.

Persuasion was useless. “Perhaps Heaven knows best,” sighed Mrs. Tudor, and with tears in her eyes (for she had really loved the beautiful young stranger, thrown for so many long weeks upon her mercy and kindness) she saw Daisy depart.

“May God grant you may not be too late!” she cried, fervently, clasping the young girl, for the last time, in her arms.