Hugh Worthington

It was not a disagreeable picture—that chubby, rosy cheeked little boy, his white fat shoulders peeping out from the dress of crimson and black, his fair curls blowing around his forehead, and his eyes raised curiously to the doctor’s face. Willie had not expected to see a stranger, and at sight of the tall figure, muffled above the chin, he drew back timidly and half hid himself behind Mrs. Richards, whom he intuitively knew to be the warmest ally he had among the three ladies gathered in the hall.

As the doctor had said to Irving Stanley he disliked children, but he could not help noticing Willie, and after the first greetings were over he asked, “Whom have we here? whose child is this?”

Eudora and Asenath tried to frown, but the expression of their faces softened as they glanced at Willie, who had followed them into the parlor, and who, with one little foot thrown forward, and his fat hands pressed together, stood upon the hearth rug, gazing at the doctor with that strange look which had so often puzzled, bewildered, and fascinated the entire Richards family.

“Anna wrote you that the maid she so much wanted had come to her at last—a very lady-like person, who has evidently seen better days, and this is her boy, Willie. He is such a queer little fellow, that we allow him more liberties than we ought.”

It was Mrs. Richards who volunteered this explanation, while her son stood looking down at Willie, wondering what it was about the child which seemed familiar. Anna had mentioned Mrs. Hastings in her letter—had said how much she liked her, had spoken of her boy, but the Hastings had been badly blotted, and as the Doctor was too much absorbed in his own affairs to care for Anna’s waiting-maid, he had not thought of her since, notwithstanding that ’Lina had tried many times to make him speak of Anna’s maid, so as to calculate her own safety.

“So you’ve taken to petting a servant’s child, for want of something better,” he said in answer to Mrs. Richards’ rather long speech concerning Willie.

Ere Mrs. Richards could reply Anna made her appearance, and the fastidious Doctor forgot the little fellow, who was coaxed from the room by Pamelia, and taken to his mother.

The doctor was not in as good humor as men are supposed to be on the eve of their marriage with heiresses. He had offered to accompany ’Lina to Kentucky, but she had peremptorily declined his escort, and rather, as it seemed to him, thrust herself upon a gentleman and lady who were returning to Louisville. Several little things which she had done at the last had displeased him, as showing less refinement than he had given her credit for possessing, besides which he could not conceal from himself the suspicion that Mrs. Ellsworth was heartily glad to be rid of her, and had perhaps talked of going to Europe with her little girl as a ruse, and that she was not a favorite with any one of his particular friends. Still he meant to marry her, and after the late dinner was over he went with Anna to inspect the rooms which Adah had fitted for his bride. They were very pleasant, and he could find fault with nothing. The carpet, the curtains, the new light furniture, the arm chair by the window where ’Lina was expected to sit, the fanciful work basket standing near, and his chair not far away, all were in perfect taste, but still there was a load upon his heart, making him so silent and moody, that Anna forebore talking to him much and did not even mention Adah, though she had meant to tell him just what a treasure she was and perhaps have him see her too. But the doctor was in no frame of mind to talk of strangers, for thoughts of Lily were particularly haunting him to-day.

It was a great mistake he made when he cast her off but it could not now be helped. No tears, no regrets could bring back the dear little form laid away beneath the grassy sod, and so he would not waste his time in idle mourning. He would do the best he could with ’Lina. He did believe she loved him. He was almost sure of it, and as a means of redressing Lily’s wrongs he would be kind to her. Lily would bid him do so if she could speak. She surely knew what he was doing; perhaps she was very near to him; he somehow felt that she was, and more than once, he caught himself turning suddenly with the fancy that Lily was behind him. The doctor was not superstitious, but he began at last to feel that it would be a relief to be freed from the Lily-laden atmosphere pervading Terrace Hill, and rather joyfully he watched the sun as it passed the meridian, and sank lower and lower in the west, for by that token he knew he had not a much longer time to stay at home, as he would take the evening train bound for Albany.

Slowly the twilight shadows crept over Terrace Hill and into the little room where Adah was preparing for her accustomed walk to the office. Willie was down with Pamelia, who, when she came up for him, had told Adah as something of which she should be proud, that the doctor had actually thrown Willie into the air and pronounced him a splendid-looking child, “considering.”

That “considering” wounded Adah, for she felt the sneer at her position which it implied, and with a faint smile, she dismissed Pamelia, and then went to the closet for the over-shoes she would need in her damp walk. But what was it which fell like a thunderbolt on her ear, riveting her to the spot where she stood, rigid and immovable. Between the closet and Anna’s room there was only a thin partition, and when the door was open every sound was distinctly heard. The doctor had just come in, and it was his voice, heard for the first time, which sent the blood throbbing so madly through Adah’s veins, and made the sparks of fire dance before her eyes. She was not deceived—the tones were too distinct, too full, too well remembered to be mistaken, and stretching out her hands in the dim darkness, she moaned faintly: “George! ’tis George!” then sank upon the floor, powerless but not fainting, nor yet unconscious of the terrible certainty that George was so near to her that but for the partition she might almost have touched him! She could hear him now saying to Anna, “Are we alone? I wish to speak my farewell words in private.”

“Yes, all alone,” Anna replied. “Mrs. Hastings has gone to the Post-office. Was it any thing particular you wished to tell me?”

The Doctor either did not hear the name “Mrs. Hastings,” or did not notice it, and again the familiar tones thrilled on Adah’s ear as he replied, “Nothing very particular. I only wished to say a few words of ’Lina. I want you to like her, to make up, if possible, for the love I ought to give her.”

“Ought to give her! Oh, brother, are you taking ’Lina without love? Better never make the vow than break it after it is made.”

Anna spoke earnestly, and the doctor, who always tried to retain her good opinion, replied evasively, “I suppose I do love her as well as half the world love their wives before marriage, but she is different from any ladies I have known; so different from, what poor Lily was. Anna, let me talk with you again of Lily. I never told you all—but what is that?” he continued, as he indistinctly heard the choking, gasping, stifled sob, which Adah gave at the sound of the dear pet name, which used to make the blood thrill so ecstatically through her veins, and which now, for a single moment, made her heart bound with sudden joy; but only for a moment.

“Poor Lily,” said a hundred times, with a hundred fold more tenderness than he was wont to say it, could not atone for the past; for the cruel desertion, for the deception even of the name; and so the poor, wounded heart grew still again as lead, while Anna answered, “It’s only the rising wind. It sounds so always when it’s in the east. What of Lily? Do you wish you were going after her instead of ’Lina?”

Could Anna have seen then into the darkness of the adjoining room, she would have shrunk in terror from the figure, which, as she asked that question, struggled to its knees, and creeping nearer to the door, turned its white, spectral face toward her, listening eagerly for the answer. Oh, why did the doctor hesitate a moment? Why did he suffer his dread of losing Anna’s respect to triumph over every other feeling? He had meant to tell her all, how he did love the gentle girl, who confided herself to him—how he loved even her memory now far more than he loved ’Lina, but something kept the full confession back, and he answered,

“I don’t know. We must have money, and ’Lina is rich, while Lily was very poor, and the only friend or relation she knew was one with whom I would not dare have you come in contact, he was so wicked and reckless.”

This was what the doctor said, and into the brown eyes, now bloodshot and dim with anguish, there came the hard, fierce look, before which Alice Johnson once had shuddered, when Adah Hastings said,

“I should hate him!”

And in that dark hour of agony Adah felt that she did hate him. She knew now that what she before would not believe was true. He had not made her a lawful wife, else he had never dared to take another. She was a degraded creature, Willie a child of sin, and he had made them so. It was the bitterest dreg she had been forced to take, and for an instant, she forgot the God she served, forgot every thing save the desire to curse the man talking so calmly of her, as if her ruin were nought to him. But anon, the still small voice she always obeyed spoke to her tumultuous spirit, and the curse on her lips died away in the faint whisper, “Forgive me, Father, and forgive him, too.”

She did not hear him now, for with that prayer, all consciousness forsook her, and she lay on her face insensible, while at the very last he did confess to Anna that Lily was his wife. He did not say unlawfully so. He could not tell her that. He said,

“I married her privately. I kept it from you all until she died. I would bring her back if I could, but I cannot, and I shall marry ’Lina.”

“But,” and Anna grasped his hand nervously, “I thought you told me once, that you won her love, and then, when mother’s harsh letters came, left her without a word. Was that story false?”

The doctor was wading out in deep waters, and in desperation he added lie to lie, saying, huskily—

“Yes, that was false. I tell you I married her, and she died. Was I to blame for that?”

“No, no, oh, no. I’d far rather it were so. I respect you more than if you had left her. I am glad, so glad not that she died, but that you are not so bad as I feared. Sweet Lily,” and Anna’s tears flowed fast to the memory of the poor girl whose early grave she saw in fancy some where in a beautiful Greenwood.

There was a knock at the door, and Jim appeared, inquiring if the doctor would have the carriage brought round. It was nearly time to go, and with the whispered words to Anna, “I have told you what no one else must ever know,” the doctor descended with his sister to the parlor, where his mother was waiting for him. The opening and shutting of the door caused a draught of air, which, falling on the fainting Adah, restored her to consciousness, and struggling to her feet, she tried to think what it was that had happened. She remembered it soon, and with a shudder listened to know if George was still in the adjoining chamber. All was quiet there. He had gone, and tottering into the room, she knelt by the chair where she knew he had sat. Then, as the last expiring throe of her love for him swept over her, she essayed to wind her trembling arms around the chair, as she would once have twined them about him.

“Oh, George! George!” she gasped, calling him still George, for, she almost hated that other name.

“Oh, George, I did love you so much,” and she laid her poor, tired head upon the chair as if it had been his lap. “I loved you so much, but it is over now, or it soon will be. I feel its death struggles at my heart. You are worse than I believed. You have made me an outcast, and Willie ——” The sentence ended with the wailing cry—“My boy, my boy! that such a heritage should be yours.”

Adah could not pray then, although she tried, but the fitting words would not come, and with her head still resting on his chair, she looked the terrible reality in the face, and saw just where she stood. Heretofore the one great hope, that she was really a wife, had buoyed her up when everything else was dark. Like a drowning person grasping at a straw, she had clung to that, even against her better judgment, but now it was swept away, and with it the semblance of a name. He had deceived her even there, and she had accepted the Hastings as something tangible. He was a greater villain than she had imagined a man could be, and again her white lips essayed to curse him, but the rash act was stayed by the low words whispered in her ear, “Forgive as ye would be forgiven.”

“If it were not for Willie, I might, but oh! my boy, my boy disgraced,” was the rebellious spirit’s answer, when again the voice whispered, “And who art thou to contend against thy God? Know you not that I am the Father of the fatherless.”

There were tears now in Adah’s eyes, the first which she had shed.

“I’ll try,” she murmured, “try to forgive the wrong, but the strength must all be thine,” and then, though there came no sound or motion; her heart went out in agonizing prayer, that she might forgive even as she hoped to be forgiven.

She did not ask that the dead love might ever return again. She had no desire for that, but she asked to feel kindly towards him, that the resentful feeling might be removed, that God would show her what to do and where to go, for she could not stay there now, in his home, whither he would bring his bride ere many days were gone. She must go away, not to Spring Bank, not anywhere where he or ’Lina could ever find her. She would far rather die. But Willie! what would she do with him, her tender, innocent boy?

“God tell me what to do with Willie?” she sobbed, starting suddenly as the answer to her prayer seemed to come at once. “Oh can I do that?” she moaned; “can I leave him here?”

At first her whole soul recoiled from it, but when she remembered Anna, and how much she loved the child, her feelings began to change. Anna would love him more when she knew he was poor Lily’s and her own brother’s. She would be kind to him for his father’s sake, and for the sake of the girl she had professed to like. Willie should be bequeathed to Anna. It would break her heart to leave him, were it not already broken, but it was better so. It would be better in the end. He would forget her in time, unless sweet Anna told him of her, as perhaps she might. Dear Anna, how Adah longed to fold her arms about her once and call her sister, but she must not. It might not be well received, for Anna had some pride, as her waiting-maid had learned.

“A waiting-maid!” Adah repeated the name, smiling bitterly as she thought, “A waiting-maid in his own home! Who would have dreamed that I should ever come to this, when he painted the future so grandly? Be still, my heart, or I shall hate him yet, and I’m going to forgive him.”

Then there came over her the wild, yearning desire to see his face once more, to know if he had changed, and why couldn’t she? They supposed her gone to the office, and she would go there now, taking the depot on the way. She would go closely veiled, and none would suspect her errand. Rising mechanically, she donned her cloak and hood, and stealing down the stairs which led from Anna’s room into the garden, she was soon out beneath the starry sky, inhaling the cool night air, so grateful to her heated brain.

Apart in the ladies’ room at Snowdon depot, a veiled figure sat, waiting apparently for the cars, just as others were. She was the only female present, and no one had noticed her particularly when she came in, for the gentlemen walking up and down the room only glanced at her, and then gave her no further thought. And there she sat, Dr. Richards’ deserted wife, waiting to look on his face once more ere she fled she knew not whither. He came at last, Jim’s voice speaking to his horses heralding his approach. Adah could not see him yet, but she knew just when his feet struck the platform as he sprang from the carriage, and shivered as if it were a blow aimed at her heart.

The group of rough-looking men gathered about the office did not suit his mood, and so he came on to the ladies’ apartment, just as Adah knew he would. Pausing for a moment on the threshold, he looked hastily in, his glance falling upon the veiled figure sitting there so lonely and motionless. She did not care for him, she would not object to his presence, so he came nearer to the stove, poising his patent leathers upon the hearth, thrusting both hands into his pockets, and even humming to himself snatches of a song, which Lily used to sing, up the three flights of stairs in that New York boarding-house.

Poor Adah! How white and cold she grew, listening to that air, and gazing upon the face she had loved so well. It was changed since the night when, with his kiss warm on her lips, he left her forever; changed, and for the worse. There was a harder, a more reckless, determined expression there, a look which better than words could have done, told that self alone was the god he worshipped. Adah doubted if he could have won her love with that look upon his face, and ’Lina Worthington was not envied the honor in store for her. It was a bitter struggle to sit there so quietly, to meet the eye before which she was wont to blush with happiness, to know that he was looking at her, wondering it might be, who she was, but never dreaming it was Lily.

Once, as he walked up and down the room, passing so near to her that she might have touched him with her hand, she felt an almost irresistible desire to thrust her thick brown veil aside, and confronting him to his face, claim from him what she had a right to claim, his name and a position as his wife. Only for Willie’s sake, however for herself she did not wish it. He was not worthy, and forcing back the wild impulse, she sat with throbbing heart and bloodless lips watching him, as he still walked up and down, his brows knit together as if absorbed in some unpleasant thought.

It was a relief when at last the roll of the cars was heard, and buttoning his coat still closer around him, he went out upon the platform and stepped mechanically into the car.

Quickly Adah, too, passed through the rear door out into the street, and with a piteous moan for her ruined life, kept on her way till the post-office was reached.

There was a letter for Anna in the box, and thrusting it into her pocket Adah took her way back to Terrace Hill.

The family, including Anna, were spending the evening in the parlor, where there were callers, and thus none thought of or noticed Adah as she passed through the hall and crept up to her room.

Willie was asleep; and as Pamelia, who brought him up, had thoughtfully undressed and placed him in bed, there was nothing for Adah to do but think. She should go away, of course; she could not stay there longer; but how should she tell them why she went, and who would be her medium, for communication?

“Anna,” she whispered; and lighting her little lamp, she sat down to write the letter which would tell Anna Richards who was the waiting-maid to whom she had been so kind.

Adah was very calm when she began that letter, and as it progressed, she seemed turning into stone, so insensible she was to what, without that rigidity of nerve, would have been a task more painful than she could well endure.

“Dear Anna,” she wrote. “Forgive me for calling you so this once, for indeed I cannot help it. I am going away from you; and when, in the morning, you wait for me to come as usual, I shall not be here. I could not stay and meet your brother when he returns. Oh, Anna, Anna, how shall I begin to tell you what I know will grieve and shock your pure nature so dreadfully?

“I love to call you Anna now, for you seem near to me; and believe me, while I write this to you, I am conscious of no feeling of inferiority to any one bearing your proud name. I am, or should have been, your sister; and Willie!—oh, my boy, when I think of him, I seem to be going mad!

“Cannot you guess?—don’t you know now who I am? God forgive your brother, as I asked him to do, kneeling there by the very chair where he sat an hour since, talking to you of Lily. I heard him, and the sound of his voice took power and strength away. I could not move to let you know I was there, and I lay upon the floor till consciousness forsook me; and then, when I woke again, you both were gone.

“I went to the depot, I saw him in his face to make assurance sure, and Anna, I,—oh I don’t know what I am. The world would not call me a wife, though I believed I was; but they cannot deal thus cruelly by Willie, or wash from his veins his father’s blood, for I—,who write this, I who have been a servant in the house where I should have been the mistress, am Lily—wronged, deserted Lily—and Willie is your brother’s child! His father’s looks are in his face. But when I came here I had no suspicion, for he won me as George Hastings; that was the name by which I knew him, and I was Adah Gordon. If you do not believe me, ask him when he comes back if ever in his wanderings he met with Adah Gordon, or her guardian, Mr. Redfield. Ask if he was ever present at a marriage where this Adah gave her heart to one for whom she would then have lost her life, erring in that she loved the gift more than the giver; but God punishes idolatry, and he has punished me, so sorely, oh so sorely, that sometimes my fainting soul cries out, ‘’tis more than I can bear.’”

Then followed more particulars so that there should be no doubt, and then the half crazed Adah took up the theme nearest to her heart, her boy, her beautiful Willie. She could not take him with her. She knew not where she was going, and Willie must not suffer. Would Anna take the child? Would she love him for his father’s sake? Would she shield him from scorn, and when he was older would she sometimes tell him of the mother who went away that he might be spared shame?

“I do not ask that the new bride should ever call him hers,” she wrote; “I’d rather she would not. I ask that you should give him a mother’s care, and if his father will sometimes speak kindly to him for the sake of the olden time when he did love the mother, tell him—Willie’s father, I mean—tell him, oh I know not what to bid you tell him, except that I forgive him, though at first it was so hard, and the words refused to come; I trusted him so much, loved him so much, and until I had it from his own lips, believed I was his wife. But that cured me; that killed the love, if any still existed, and now, if I could, I would not be his, unless it were for Willie’s sake. Don’t deem me too proud when I say, that to be his wife would be to me more terrible than any thing which I yet have borne, except it were for Willie. I say this because it’s possible your kind heart would prompt you at once to bring back your erring brother, and persuade him at the last to do me justice. But I would not have it so. Shield Willie; nurture him tenderly; teach your mother to love him, and if you so desire it, I will never cross his path, never come near to him, though at a distance, if Heaven wills it, I shall watch my child.

“And now farewell. God deal with you, dear Anna, as you deal with my boy.”

Calmly, steadily, Adah folded up the missive, and laying it with the other letter, busied herself next in making the necessary preparations for her flight. Anna had been very liberal with her in point of wages, paying her every week, and paying more than at first agreed upon; and as she had scarcely spent a penny during her three months’ sojourn at Terrace Hill, she had, including what Alice had given to her, nearly forty dollars. She was trying so hard to make it a hundred, and so send it to Hugh some day; but she needed it most herself, and she placed it carefully in her little purse, sighing over the golden coin which Anna had paid her last, little dreaming for what purpose it would be used. She would not change her dress until Anna had retired, as that might excite suspicion; so with the same rigid apathy of manner she sat down by Willie’s side and waited till Anna was heard moving in her room. The lamp was burning dimly on the bureau, and so Anna failed to see the frightful expression of Adah’s face as she performed her accustomed duties, brushing Anna’s hair, and letting her hands linger caressingly amid the locks she might never touch again.

It did strike Anna that something was the matter; for when Adah spoke to her, the voice was husky and unnatural. Still, she paid no attention, and the chapter was read as usual, after which Adah bade her good night and went to her own room. Anna slept very soundly, and when toward morning a light footstep glided across her threshold she did not hear it, neither did she know when two letters were laid softly on her pillow, where she could not fail to find them when she awoke, nor yet was she aware of the blessings breathed over her, as kneeling by her side Adah prayed out her farewell. Not wept. She could not do that, even when it came to leaving Willie. Her tears were frozen into stone, and the mighty throes of anguish which seemed forcing her heart from its natural position were of no avail to moisten the feverish lids, drooping so heavily over the swollen eyes. A convulsive prayer, in which her whole soul was embodied, a gasping sob of bitter, bitter pain, and then Adah put from her the little soft, warm, baby arm which Willie had unconsciously thrown across her neck when she laid her face by his. She dared not look at him again lest the sight should unnerve her, and with a decision born of desperation, she left her sleeping boy and hurried down the stairs into the gloomy hall, where not a sound was audible as her feet pressed the soft thick carpet on her passage to the outer door. The bolt was drawn, the key was turned, and just as the clock struck three, Adah stood outside the yard, leaning on the gate and gazing back at the huge building looming up so dark and grand beneath the starry sky. One more prayer for Willie and the mother-auntie to whose care she had left him, one more straining glance at the window of the little room where he lay sleeping, and she resolutely turned away, nor stopped again until the Danville depot was reached, the station where, in less than five minutes after her arrival, the night express stood for an instant, and then went thundering on, bearing with it another passenger, bound for—she knew not, cared not whither.