Hugh Worthington

Dr. Richards had arrived at Spring Bank. He, too, had been detained in Cincinnati, and did not reach his destination until late on Wednesday evening. Hugh was the first to meet him, for Alice had retired, and ’Lina had fled from the room at the first sound of the voice she had been so anxiously waiting for. For a moment Hugh scrutinized the stranger’s face earnestly, and then asked if they had never met before.

“Not to my knowledge,” the doctor replied in perfect good faith, for he had no suspicion that the man eyeing him so closely was the one witness of his marriage with Adah, the stranger whom he scarcely noticed, and whose name he had forgotten.

Once fully in the light, where Hugh could discern the features plainer, he began to be less sure of having met his guest before, for that immense mustache and those well-trimmed whiskers, had changed the doctor’s physiognomy materially.

’Lina now came stealing in, affecting such a pretty coyness of manner, that Hugh felt like roaring with laughter and ere long hurried out where he could indulge his merriment.

’Lina was glad to see the doctor. She had even cried at his delay; and though no one knew it, had sat up nearly the whole preceding night, waiting and listening by her open window for any sound to herald his approach, and once she had stolen out with her thin slippers into the yard, standing on the damp ground a long time, and only returning to the house when she felt a chill creeping over her, and knew she was taking cold.

As the result of this long vigil, her head ached dreadfully the next day, and even the doctor noticed her burning cheeks and watery eyes, and feeling her rapid pulse asked if she were ill.

She was not, she said; she had only been troubled, because he did not come, and then for once in her life she did a womanly act. She laid her head in the doctor’s lap and cried, just as she had done the previous night. He understood the cause of her tears at last, and touched with a greater degree of tenderness for her than he had ever before experienced, he smoothed her glossy black hair, and asked, “Would you be very sorry to lose me?”

Selfish and hard as she was, ’Lina loved the doctor, and with a shudder as she thought of the deception imposed on him, and a half regret that she had so deceived him, she replied, “I am not worthy of you, but I do love you very much, and it would kill me to lose you now. Promise that when you find, as you will, how bad I am, you will not hate me!”

It was an attempt at confession, but the doctor did not so construe it. Whatever her errors were, his, he knew, were tenfold greater, and so he continued smoothing her hair, while he tried to say the words of affection he knew she was waiting to hear.

It was very dark that night, and the doctor received only a vague idea of Spring Bank and its surroundings, and that did not impress him as grandly as he had thought it would. But then, he reflected that Southerners were not as noted for fine houses as Northerners were, and so felt secure as yet, wondering which of the negroes he had seen belonged to ’Lina, and which to Hugh. He knew Lulu was not to accompany his wife to Terrace Hill, for ’Lina had told him so, saying that in the present state of excited feeling she did not think it best to take a negro slave to New England. He knew, too, that nothing had been said about money or lands coming to him with his bride, but he took it all on trust, and looked rather complacently around the prettily furnished chamber to which, at a late hour, he was conducted by Hugh.

The bright sunlight of the next morning was very exhilarating, and though the doctor was disappointed in Spring Bank, he greeted his bride-elect kindly, noticing, when he did so, how her cheeks alternately paled, and then grew red, while she seemed to be chilly and cold. ’Lina had passed a wretched night, tossing from side to side, bathing her throbbing head and rubbing her aching limbs. The severe cold taken in the wet yard was making itself visible, and she came to the breakfast-table jaded wretched and sick, a striking contrast to Alice Johnson, who seemed to the doctor more beautiful than ever. She was unusually gay this morning, for while talking to Dr. Richards, whom she had met in the parlor, she had, among other things concerning Snowdon, said to him, casually, as it seemed, “Anna has a waiting-maid at last: You saw her of course?”

Somehow the doctor fancied Alice wished him to say yes, and as a falsehood was nothing for him, he replied at once, “Oh, yes, I saw her. Her little boy is splendid.”

Alice was satisfied. The shadow lifted from her spirits. Dr. Richards was not George Hastings. He was not the villain she had feared, and ’Lina might have him now. Poor ’Lina! Alice felt almost as if she had done her a wrong by suspecting the doctor, and was very kind to her that day. Poor ’Lina! we say it again, for hard, and wicked, and treacherous, and unfilial, as she had ever been, she had need for pity on this her wedding day. Retribution terrible and crushing, was at hand, hurrying on in the carriage bringing Anna Richards to Spring Bank, and on the fleet-footed steed bearing the convict swiftly up the Frankfort ‘pike.

Restless and impatient ’Lina wandered from room to room, stopping longest in the one where lay the bridal dress, at which she gazed wistfully, feeling almost as if it were her shroud. She could not tell what ailed her. She only knew that she felt wretchedly, as if some direful calamity were about to overtake her, and more than once her eyes filled with tears as she wished her path to Dr. Richards’ name had been marked with no deception. He was now in his room, and it was almost time for her to dress. Lulu might begin to arrange her hair, and she called her just as the mud-bespattered vehicle containing Anna Richards drove up, Mr. Millbrook having purposely stopped in Versailles, thinking it better that Anna should go on alone.

It was Ellen Tiffton, who was to come early, ’Lina said, and so the dressing continued, and she was all unsuspicious of the scene enacting below, in the room where Anna met her brother alone. She had not given Hugh her name. She simply asked for Dr. Richards, and conducting her into the parlor, hung with bridal decorations, Hugh went for the doctor, saying, “a lady wished to see him.”

“A lady! Who is it?” the doctor asked, visions of his aggrieved mother, in her black silk velvet, rising before his mind. “What could a lady and a stranger want of him?”

Mechanically he took his way to the parlor, while Hugh resumed his seat by the window, where for the last hour he had watched for the coming of one who had said, “I will be there.”

Half an hour later, had he looked into the parlor, he would have seen a frightened, white-faced man, crouching at Anna Richards’ side and whispering to her as if all life, all strength, all power to act for himself, were gone.

“What must I do? Tell me what to do.”

She had given him no time for questioning, but handing him Adah’s letter, had bidden him read it through, as that would explain her presence at Spring Bank. One glance at the handwriting, and the doctor turned white as marble. “Could it be? Had Lily come back to life?” he asked himself, and then eagerly, rapidly, he read the first two pages, every word burning into his heart and bewildering his brain. But when he came to the line, “I am Lily, and Willie is your brother’s child,” sight and sense seemed failing him, and tottering to his sister, sternly regarding him, he gasped, “Oh, Anna, read for me. I can’t see any more—it runs together, and I—I’m going to faint!”

“No, you are not. You must not faint; you shall not,” Anna exclaimed, shaking him energetically and applying to his nostrils the bottle of strong hartshorn she had procured in Versailles for just such an emergency as this.

The odor half strangled him, but Anna’s object was attained. He did not faint, but sat like an idiotic thing, listening while she read the letter through, and demanded if it were true. Was it Adah Gordon whom he deserted, and was it a mock marriage? She would have the truth, and he had no desire to conceal it.

“Yes, true—all true—but I thought she was dead. I did, Anna. Oh, Lily, where is she now? I’m going to——”

“Sit down,” Anna said, imperatively; and with all the air of an imbecile he crouched at her feet, asking what he should do.

This was a puzzle to Anna, and she replied by asking him another question. “Do you love ’Lina Worthington?”

“I—I—no, I guess I don’t; but she’s rich, and——”

With a motion of disgust Anna cut him short, saying, “Don’t make me despise you more than I do. Until your lips confessed it, I had faith that Lily was mistaken, that your marriage was honorable, at least, even if you tired of it afterward. You are worse than I supposed and now you speak of money. What shall you do? Get up, and not sit whining at my feet like a puppy. Find Lily, of course, and if she will stoop to listen a second time to your suit, make her your wife, working to support her until your hands are blistered, if need be.”

Anna hardly knew herself in this phase of her character, and her brother certainly did not.

“Don’t be hard on me, Anna,” he said, “I’ll do what you say, only don’t be hard. It’s come so sudden, that my head is like a whirlpool. Lily, Willie, Willie. The child I saw, you mean—yes, the child—I—saw—did it say he—was—my—boy?”

The words were thick and far apart. The head drooped lower and lower, the color all left the lips, and in spite of Anna’s vigorous shakes, or still more vigorous hartshorn, overtaxed nature gave way, and the doctor fainted at last. It was Anna’s turn now to wonder what she should do, and she was about summoning aid from some quarter when the door opened suddenly, and Hugh ushered in a stranger—the convict, who had kept his word, and came to tell what he knew of this complicated mystery. No one had seen him as he entered the house but Hugh, who was expecting him, and who, in reply to his inquiries for the doctor, told where he was, and that a stranger was with him. There was a low, hurried conversation between the two, a partial revelation of the business which had brought Sullivan there, and at its close Hugh’s face was deadly white, for he knew now that he had met Dr. Richards before, and that ’Lina could not be his wife.

“The villain!” he muttered, involuntarily clenching his fist as if to smite the dastard as he followed Sullivan into the parlor, starting back when he saw the prostrate form upon the floor, and heard the lady say, “My brother, sir, has fainted.”

She was Anna, then; and Hugh guessed rightly why she was there.

“Madame,” he began, but ere another word was uttered there fell upon his ear a shriek which seemed to cleave the very air and made even the fainting man move in his unconsciousness.

It was Mrs. Worthington who, with hands outstretched as if to keep him off, stood upon the threshold, gazing in mute terror at the horror of her life, whispering incoherently, “What is it, Hugh? How came he here? Save me, save me from him!”

A look, half of sorrow, half of contempt, flitted across the stranger’s face as he answered for Hugh kindly, gently, “Is the very sight of me so terrible to you, Eliza? Believe me, you have nothing to fear. I am only here to set matters right—to make amends for the past, so far as possible. Here for our daughter’s sake.”

He had drawn nearer to her as he said this last, but she intuitively turned to Hugh, who started suddenly, growing white and faint as a suspicion of the truth flashed upon him.

“Mother?” he began, interrogatively, winding his arm about her, for she was the weaker of the two.

She knew what he would ask, and with her eye still upon the man who fascinated her gaze, she answered, sadly, “Forgive me, Hugh, I thought he was dead. The paper said so, with all the particulars. Forgive me. He was—my husband; he is—’Lina’s father, not yours, Hugh, oh, Heaven be praised, not yours!” and she clung closely to her boy, as if glad one child, at least, was not tainted with the Murdoch blood.

The convict smiled bitterly, and said to Hugh himself,

“Your mother is right. She was once my wife, but the law set her free from the galling chain. I have had a variety of names in my life; so many, indeed, that I hardly knew which is my real one.”

He was perfectly cool, but his face showed the effort it was to be so, while his black eyes rolled restlessly from one object to another, and he was about to speak again when Alice came tripping down the stairs, and pausing at the parlor door, looked in.

“Anna Richards!” she exclaimed, but uttered no other sound for the terror of something terrible, which kept her silent.

It was no ordinary matter which had brought that group together, and she stood looking from one to the other, until the convict said,

“Young lady, you cannot be the bride, but will you call her, tell her she is wanted.”

Alice never knew what she said to ’Lina. She was only conscious of following her down the stairs and into that dreadful room. Sullivan was watching for her, and the muscles about his mouth twitched convulsively, while a shadow of mingled pity and tenderness swept over his features as his eye fell on the girlish figure behind her, ’Lina, with the orange blossoms in her hair—’Lina almost ready for the bridal!

For an instant the convict regarded her intently, and there was something in his glance which brought Hugh at once to ’Lina, where, with his arm upon her chair, he stood as if he would protect her. Noble Hugh! ’Lina never knew one-half how good and generous he was until just as she was losing him.

Dr. Richards was restored by this time, and looked on those around him in utter astonishment; on Mrs. Worthington crouched in the farthest corner, her face as white as ashes, and her eyes riveted upon the figure of the man standing in the center of the room; on ’Lina, terrified at what she saw; on Anna, more perplexed, more astonished than himself, and on Hugh, towering up so commandingly above the whole, and demanding of the convict the explanation which he had come to make.

There was a moment’s hesitancy, and his face flushed and paled alternately ere the convict could summon courage to begin.

“Take this seat, sir, you need it,” Hugh said, bringing him a chair and then resuming his watch over ’Lina, who involuntarily leaned her throbbing head upon his arm, and with the others listened to that strange tale of sin.