Hugh Worthington

Drearily the morning dawned, but there were no bridal slumbers to be broken, no bridal farewells said. There were indeed good-byes to be spoken, for Anna was impatient to be gone, and at an early hour she was ready to leave the house she had entered under so unpleasant circumstances.

“I would like to see ’Lina,” she said to Alice, who carried the request to the sick room.

But ’Lina refused. “I can’t,” she said; “she hates, she despises me, and she had reason. Tell her I was not worthy to be her sister; tell her anything you like; but the doctor—oh, Alice, do you think he’ll come, just for a minute, before he goes?”

It was not a pleasant thing for the doctor to meet ’Lina now face to face, for he thought she wished to reproach him for his treachery. But she did not—she thought only of herself; and when at last, urged on by Anna and Alice, he entered in to her presence, she only offered him her hand at first without a single word. He was shocked to find her so sick, for a few hours had worked a marvellous change in her, and he shrank from the bright eyes fixed so eagerly on his face.

“Oh, Dr. Richards,” she began at last, “if I loved you less it would not be so hard to tell you what I must. I did love you, bad as I am, but I meant to deceive you. It was for me that Adah kept silence at Terrace Hill. Adah, I almost hate her for having crossed my path.”

There was a fearfully vindictive gleam in the bright eyes now, and the doctor shudderingly looked away, while ’Lina, with a softer tone continued, “You believed me rich, and whether you loved me afterward or not, you sought me first for my money. I kept up the delusion, for in no other way could I have won you. Dr. Richards, if I die, as perhaps I may, I shall have one less sin for which to atone, if I confess to you that instead of the heiress you imagined me to be, I had scarcely money enough to pay my board at that hotel. Hugh, who himself is poor, furnished what means I had, and most of my jewelry was borrowed. Do you hear that? Do you know what you have escaped?”

She almost shrieked at the last, for she read his feelings in his face, and knew that he despised her.

“Go,” she continued, “find your Adah. It’s nothing but Adah now. I see her name in everything. Hugh thinks of nothing else, and why should he? She’s his sister, and I—oh! I’m nobody but a beggarly servant’s brat. I wish I was dead! I wish I was dead, and I will be pretty soon.”

This was their parting, and the doctor left her room a sobered, sadder man than he had entered it. Half an hour later, and he, with Anna, was fast nearing Versailles, where they were joined by Mr. Millbrook, and together the three started on their homeward route.

Rapidly the tidings flew, told in a thousand different ways, and the neighborhood was all on fire with the strange gossip. But little cared they at Spring Bank for the storm outside. So fierce a one was beating at their doors, that even the fall of Sumter failed to elicit more than a casual remark from Hugh, who read without the slightest emotion the President’s call for 75,000 men. At another time he might have been eager to join the fray and hasten to avenge the insult, for Kentucky held no truer patriot than he, but now all his thoughts were centered in that dark room where ’Lina raved in mad delirium, controlled only by his or Alice’s voice, and quiet only when one of them was with her. Tenderer than a brother was Hugh to the raving creature, staying by her so patiently and uncomplainingly that none save Alice ever guessed how he longed to be free and join in the search for Adah, which had as yet proved fruitless. Night after night, day after day, ’Lina grew worse, until at last there was no hope, and the council of physicians summoned to her side, said that she would die. Still she lingered on, and the fever abated at last, the eyes were not so fearfully bright, while the wild ravings were hushed, and ’Lina lay quietly upon her pillow.

“Do you know me?” Alice asked, bending gently over her, while Hugh, from the other side of the bed, leaned eagerly forward for the reply.

“Yes, but where am I? This is not New York. Have I—am I sick, very sick?” and ’Lina’s eyes took a terrified expression as she read the truth in Alice’s face. “I am not going to die, am I?” she continued, casting upon Alice a look which would have wrung out the truth, even if Alice had been disposed to withhold it, which she was not.

“You are very sick,” she answered, “and though we hope for the best, the doctor does not encourage us much. Are you willing to die, ’Lina?”

Neither Hugh nor Alice ever forgot the tone of ’Lina’s voice as she replied,

“Willing? No!” or the expression of her face, as she turned it to the wall, and motioned them to leave her.

For two days after that she neither spoke nor gave other token of interest in any thing passing around her, but at the expiration of that time, as Alice sat by her, she suddenly exclaimed,

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. I wish he had said that some other way, for if that means we can not be forgiven until we forgive every body, there’s no hope for me, for I cannot, I will not forgive that servant for being my mother, neither will I forgive Adah Hastings for having crossed my path. If she had never seen the doctor I should have been his wife, and never have know who or what I was. I hate them both, so you need not pray for me. I heard you last night, but it’s no use. I can’t forgive.”

’Lina was very much excited—so much so, indeed, that Alice could not talk with her then; and for days this was the burden of her remarks. She could not forgive her mother nor Adah, and until she did, there was no use for her or any one else to pray. But the prayers she could not say for herself were said for her by others, while Alice omitted no proper occasion for talking with her personally on the subject she felt to be all important. Nor were these efforts without their effect, for the bitter tone ceased at last, and ’Lina became gentle as a child.

Taking Mrs. Worthington’s hand one day, she said,

“I’ve given you little cause to love me, and I know how glad you must be that another, and not I, is your real daughter. I did not know what made me so bad, but I understand it now. I saw myself so plainly in that man’s eyes; it was his nature in me which made me a second Satan—so bad to you, so hateful to Hugh. Oh, Hugh! the memory of what I’ve been to him is the hardest part of all, for I want him to think kindly of me when I’m gone!” and covering her face with the sheet, ’Lina wept bitterly; while Hugh, who was standing behind her laid his warm hand on her head, smoothing her hair caressingly, as he said,

“Never mind that, ’Lina; I, too, was bad to you—provoking you purposely many times, and exposing your weakness just to see how savage you would be. If ’Lina can forgive me, I surely can forgive ’Lina.”

There was the sound of convulsive sobbing; and then, uncovering her face, ’Lina raised herself up, and laying her head on Hugh’s bosom, answered through her tears,

“I wish I had always felt as I do now. We should have been happier together, and it would not be so great a relief to you’all to have me gone, never to come back again. Hugh, you don’t know how bad I’ve been. You remember the money you sent to Adah last summer in mother’s letter. I kept the whole. I burned the letter, and mother never saw it. I bought jewelry with Adah’s money. I did so many things, I—I—it goes from me now. I can’t remember all. Oh, must I confess the whole, everything, before I can say, ‘Forgive us our trespasses?’”

“No, ’Lina. Unless you can repair some wrong, you are not bound to tell every little thing. Confession is due to God alone,” Alice whispered to the agitated girl, who looked bewildered, as she answered back, “But God knows all now, and you do not; besides, I can’t feel sorry towards Him as I do towards others. I try and try, but the feeling is not there—the sorry feeling, I mean, as sorry as I want to feel.”

“God, who knows our feebleness, accepts our purpose to do better, and gives us strength to carry them out,” Alice whispered, again bending over ’Lina, on whose pallid, distressed face a ray of hope for a moment shone.

“I have good purposes,” she murmured, “but I can’t, I can’t. I don’t know as they are real; may be, if I get well, they would not last, and it’s all so dark, so desolate,—nothing to make life desirable,—no home, no name, no friends—and death is so terrible. Oh, Hugh, Hugh! don’t let me go. You are strong; you can hold me back, even from Death himself, and I can be good to you; I can feel on that point, and I tell you truly that, standing as I am with the world behind and death before, I see nothing to make life desirable, but you, Hugh, my noble, my abused brother. To make you love me, as I hope I might, is worth living for. You would stand by me, Hugh,—you if no one else, and I wish I could tell you how fast the great throbs of love keep coming to my heart. Dear Hugh, brother Hugh, don’t let me die,—hold me fast.”

With an icy shiver, she clung closer to Hugh, as if he could indeed do battle with the king of terrors stealing slowly into that room.

“Somebody say ‘Our Father,’” she whispered, “I can’t remember how it goes.”

“Do you forgive and love everybody?” Alice asked, sighing as she saw the bitter expression flash for an instant over the pinched features, while the white lips answered, “Not Adah, no, not Adah.”

Alice could not pray after that, not aloud at least, and a deep silence fell upon the group assembled around the death-bed, while ’Lina slept quietly on Hugh’s strong arm. Gradually the hard expression on the face relaxed, giving way to one of quiet peace, as they waited anxiously for the close of that long sleep. It was broken at last, but ’Lina seemed lost to all save the thoughts burning at her breast,—thoughts which brought a quiver to her lips, and forced out upon her brow great drops of sweat. The noonday sun of May was shining broadly into the room, but to ’Lina it was night, and she said to Alice, now kneeling at her side, “It’s growing dark; they’ll light the street lamps pretty soon, and the band will play in the yard, but I shall not hear them. New York and Saratoga are a great ways off, and so is Terrace Hill. Tell Adah I do forgive her, and I would like to see her, for she is my half sister. The bitter is all gone. I am in charity with everybody, everybody. May I say ‘Our Father’ now? It goes and comes, goes and comes, forgive our trespasses, my trespasses; how is it, Hugh? Say it with me once, and you, too, mother.”

Mrs. Worthington, with a low cry began with Hugh the soothing prayer in which ’Lina joined feebly, throwing in ejaculatory sentences of her own. “Forgive my trespasses as I forgive those that trespass against me. Bless Hugh, dear Hugh, noble Hugh. Forgive us our trespasses, forgive us our trespasses, our trespasses, forgive my trespasses, me, forgive, forgive.”

It was the last words which ever passed ’Lina’s lips, “Forgive, forgive,” and Hugh, with his ear close to the lips, heard the faint murmur even after the hands had fallen from his neck where, in the last struggle, they had been clasped, and after the look which comes but once to all had settled on her face. That was the last of ’Lina, with that cry for pardon she passed away, and though it was but a death-bed repentance, and she, the departed, had much need for pardon, Alice clung to it as to a ray of hope, knowing how tender and full of compassion was the blessed Saviour, even to those who turn not to him until the river of death is bearing them away. Very gently Hugh laid the dead girl back upon the pillow, and leaving one kiss on her white forehead, hurried away to his own room, where, unseen by mortal eye, he could ask for knowledge to give himself to the God who had come so near to them.

The next day was appointed for the funeral, and just as the sun was setting, a long procession wound across the fields, and out to the hillside, where the Spring Bank dead were buried, and where they laid ’Lina to rest, forgetting all her faults, and speaking only kindly words of her as they went slowly back to the house, from which she had gone forever.