THE FATHER'S STORY.
"MY DAUGHTER,--My loving, kind-hearted girl. Now that your own words
encourage me with the assurance that my first fear was unfounded--now
that I can appeal to you as to an impartial witness, I will disclose the
story of my life; and, while I prove to you your parentage, will hope
that my unprejudiced child at least will believe, love, and trust her
father, in spite of a world's injustice.
"I will conceal nothing. I will plunge at once into those disclosures
which I most dread to utter, and trust to after explanation to palliate
the darkness of my tale.
"Mr. Graham is my step-father, and my blessed mother, long since dead,
was, in all but the tie of nature, a true mother to Emily. Thus allied
to those whom you love best, I am parted from them by a heavy curse;
for, not only was mine the ill-fated hand (oh, hate me not yet,
Gertrude!) which locked poor Emily up in darkness, but I stand accused
in the eyes of my fellow-men of another crime, deep, dark, and
disgraceful. And yet, though living under a ban, wandering up and down
the world a doomed and broken-hearted man, I am innocent as a child of
all intentional wrong, as you will learn, if you can trust to the truth
of the tale I am about to tell.
"Nature gave and education fostered in me a rebellious spirit. I was the
idol of my invalid mother, who, though she loved me with a love for
which I bless her memory, had not the energy to subdue the passionate
and wilful nature of her boy. But I was neither cruelly nor viciously
disposed; and though my sway at home and among my school-fellows was
alike indisputable, I made many friends, and not a single enemy. But a
sudden check was at length put to my freedom. My mother married, and I
soon came to feel bitterly the check which her husband, Mr. Graham, was
likely to impose upon my boyish independence. Had he treated me with
kindness, had he won my affections (which he might easily have done, for
my sensitive and impassioned nature disposed me to every tender and
grateful emotion), great would have been his influence in moulding my
yet unformed character.
"But his behaviour towards me was that of chilling coldness and reserve.
He repelled with scorn the first advance on my part which led me, at my
mother's instigation, to address him by the paternal title--an offence
of which I never again was guilty. And yet, while he seemed to ignore
the relationship, he assumed its authority, thus wounding my pride and
exciting opposition to his commands.
"Two things strengthened my dislike for my overbearing step-father. One
was the consciousness of my dependence upon his bounty; the other a
hint, which I received through a domestic, that Mr. Graham's dislike to
me had its origin in an old enmity between himself and my own father--an
honourable and high-minded man, whom it was ever my greatest pride to be
told that I resembled.
"Great as was the warfare in my heart, power rested with Mr. Graham; for
I was yet but a child, and necessarily subject to government--nor could
I be deaf to my mother's entreaties that, for her sake, I would learn
submission. It was only, therefore, when I had been most unjustly
thwarted that I broke into direct rebellion; and even then there were
influences ever at work to preserve outward harmony in our household.
Thus years passed on, and though I did not love Mr. Graham more, the
force of habit, the interest afforded by my studies, and increasing
self-control, rendered my life less obnoxious to me than it had once
been.
"I had one great compensation for my trials--the love I cherished for
Emily, who responded to it with equal warmth on her part. It was not
because she stood between me and her father, a mediator and a friend;
nor because she submitted to my dictation and aided me in all my plans;
it was because our natures were made for each other, and, as they grew
and expanded, were bound together by ties which a rude hand only could
rend asunder. This tenderness and depth of affection became the life of
my life.
"At length my mother died. I was at that time, sorely against my will,
employed in Mr. Graham's counting-house, and an inmate of his family.
And now, without excuse, my step-father began a course of policy as
unwise as it was cruel; and so irritating to my pride, and so torturing
to my feelings, that it angered me almost to frenzy. He tried to rob me
of the only thing that sweetened and blest my existence--the love of
Emily. I will not here recount the motives I imputed to him, nor the
means he employed. But they were such as to change my former dislike
into bitter hatred and opposition.
"Instead of submitting to his tyrannical interference, I sought Emily's
society on all occasions, and persuaded the gentle girl to lend herself
to my schemes for thwarting her father's purposes. I did not speak to
her of love; I did not seek to bind her to me by promises; I hinted not
at marriage; a sense of honour forbade it. But, with a boyish
independence, which I fear was the height of imprudence, I sought every
occasion, even in her father's presence, to maintain that constant
familiarity of intercourse which had been the growth of circumstances,
and could not, without force, be restrained.
"At length Emily was taken ill, and for six weeks I was debarred her
presence. When sufficiently recovered to leave her room, I sought and at
last obtained an opportunity to see her. We had been together in the
library more than an hour when Mr. Graham suddenly entered, and came
towards us with a face whose severity I shall not soon forget. I did not
heed an interruption, for the probable consequences of which I believed
myself prepared. But I was little prepared for the attack actually made
upon me.
"That he would accuse me of disobedience to wishes which he had hinted
in every possible way, and even intimate more plainly his resolve to
place barriers between Emily and myself, I fully expected, and was ready
with my replies; but when he burst forth with a torrent of ungentlemanly
abuse--when he imputed to me mean and selfish motives, which had never
occurred to my mind--I was struck dumb with surprise and anger.
"Then, in the presence of the pure-minded girl whom I worshipped, he
charged me with a horrid crime--the crime of forgery--asserting my guilt
as recently discovered, but positive and undoubted. My spirit had raged
before--now it was on fire. I lifted my hand and clenched my fist. What
I would have done I know not. Whether I should have found words to
assert my innocence, and refute a charge utterly false--or whether, my
voice failing me from passion, I should have swept Mr. Graham from my
path, perhaps felled him to the floor, while I strode away to rally my
calmness in the open air--I cannot now conjecture; for a wild shriek
from Emily recalled me to myself, and, turning, I saw her fall fainting
upon the sofa.
"Forgetting everything but the apparently dying condition into which the
horror of the scene had thrown her I sprang forward to her relief. There
was a table beside her and some bottles upon it. I hastily snatched what
I believed to be a simple restorative, and in my agitation emptied the
contents of the phial in her face. I know not what the exact character
of the mixture could have been; but its matters not--its effect was too
awfully evident. The fatal deed was done--and mine was the hand that did
it!
"Brought suddenly to consciousness by the intolerable torture that
succeeded, the poor girl sprang screaming from the sofa, flung her arms
wildly above her head, rushed in a frantic manner through the room, and
crouched in a corner. I followed in an agony scarce less than her own;
but she repelled me with her hands, uttering piercing shrieks. Mr.
Graham, who for an instant had looked like one paralysed by the scene,
now rushed forward like a madman. Instead of aiding me in my efforts to
lift poor Emily from the floor, and so far from compassionating my
situation, which was only less pitiable than hers, he, with a fierceness
redoubled at my being the sole cause of the disaster, attacked me with a
storm of cruel reproaches, declaring that I had killed his child. With
words like these, which are still ringing in my ears, he drove me from
the room and the house; a repulsion which I, overpowered by contrition
and remorse, had neither the wish nor the strength to resist.
"Oh! the terrible night and day that succeeded! I wandered out into the
country, spent the whole night walking beneath the open sky,
endeavouring to collect my thoughts and compose my mind, and still
morning found me with a fevered pulse and excited brain. With the
returning light, however, I began to realise the necessity of forming
some future plan of action.
"Emily's sad situation, and my intense anxiety to learn the worst
effects of the fatal accident, urged me to hasten with the earliest
morning, either openly or by stealth, to Mr. Graham's house. Everything
also which I possessed--all my money, the residue of my last quarter's
allowance, my clothing, and a few valuable gifts from my mother--were in
the chamber which I had occupied. There seemed to be no other course
left for me than to return thither, and I retracted my steps to the
city, determined, if it were necessary in order to gain the desired
particulars concerning Emily, to meet her father face to face. But as I
drew near the house I hesitated and dared not proceed. Mr. Graham had
exhausted upon me every angry word, had threatened even deeds of
violence should I again cross his threshold; and I feared to trust my
own fiery spirit to a collision in which I might be led on to an open
resistance of the man whom I had already sufficiently injured. In the
terrible work I had but yesterday done--a work of whose fatal effect I
had even then a gloomy foreshadowing--I had blighted the existence of
his worshipped child, and drawn a dark pall over his dearest hopes. It
was enough. I would not for worlds be guilty of the sin of lifting my
hand against the man who, unjust as he had been towards an innocent
youth, had met a retaliation far too severe.
"Still, I knew his wrath to be unmitigated, was well aware of his power
to excite my hot nature to frenzy, and resolved to beware how I crossed
his path. Meet him I must, to refute the false charges he had brought
against me; but not within the walls of his dwelling, the home of his
suffering daughter. In the counting-house, where the crime of forgery
was said to have been committed, and in the presence of my
fellow-clerks, I would publicly deny the deed, and dare him to its
proof. But first I must either see or hear from Emily before I met the
father at all. I must learn the exact nature and extent of the wrong I
had done him in the person of his child. For this, however, I must wait
until, under cover of the next night's darkness, I could enter the house
unperceived.
"So I wandered about all day in torment, without having food or rest,
the thought of my poor, darling, tortured Emily ever present to my
wretched thoughts. The hours seemed interminable. I remember that day of
suspense as if it had been a whole year of misery. But night came at
last, cloudy, and the air thickened with a heavy fog which, as I
approached the street where Mr. Graham lived, concealed the house until
I was opposite to it. I shuddered at the sight of the physician's
chaise standing before the door; for I knew that Dr. Jeremy had closed
his visits to Emily more than a week previously, and must have been
summoned to attend her since the accident. Thinking it probable that Mr.
Graham was in the house, I forbore to enter, but stood concealed by the
mist, and watching my opportunity.
"Once or twice Mrs. Ellis, the housekeeper, passed up and down the
staircase, as I could distinctly see through the sidelights of the door,
and Dr. Jeremy descended, followed by Mr. Graham. The doctor would have
passed hastily out, but Mr. Graham detained him, to question him
regarding his patient, as I judged from the anxiety depicted on my
step-father's countenance. The doctor's back was towards me, and I could
only judge of his replies by the effect they produced on the questioner,
whose haggard appearance became more distressed at every syllable that
fell from the honest and truthful lips of the medical man, whose words
were oracles to all who knew his skill.
"I needed, therefore, no further testimony to force the conviction that
Emily's fate was sealed; and as I looked with pity upon the afflicted
parent, and shudderingly thought of my agency in the work of
destruction, I felt that the unhappy father could not curse me more
bitterly than I cursed myself. Deeply, however, as I mourned, and have
never ceased to repent, my share in the exciting of that storm wherein
the poor girl had been so cruelly shipwrecked, I could not forget the
part that Mr. Graham had borne in the transaction, or forgive the wicked
injustice and insults which had so unmanned me as to render my hand a
fit instrument only of ruin; and as, after the doctor's departure, I
watched my step-father walk away, and saw by a street-lamp that the look
of pain had passed from his face, giving place to his usual composed and
arrogant expression, and, understood by the loud and measured manner in
which he struck his cane upon the pavement, that he was far from sharing
my humble, penitent mood, I ceased to waste upon him a compassion which
he seemed so little to require or deserve; and, pitying myself only, I
looked upon his stern face with a soul which cherished for him no other
sentiment than that of unmitigated hatred. Do not shrink from me,
Gertrude, as you read this frank confession of my passionate and deeply
stirred nature. You know not, perhaps, what it is to hate; but have you
ever been tried as I was?
"As Mr. Graham turned the corner of the street, I approached his house,
drew forth a pass-key of my own, by means of which I opened the door,
and went in. It was perfectly quiet, and no person was to be seen in any
of the lower rooms. I passed noiselessly upstairs, and entered a little
chamber at the head of the passage which communicated with Emily's room.
I waited here a long time, hearing no sound and seeing no one. But
fearing that Mr. Graham would shortly return, I determined to ascend to
my own room, collect my money and a few articles of value, and then make
my way to the kitchen, and gain what news I could of Emily from Mrs.
Prime, the cook, a kind-hearted woman, who would, I felt sure, befriend
me.
"The first part of my object was accomplished; and I had descended the
back staircase to gain Mrs. Prime's premises, when I suddenly met Mrs.
Ellis coming from the kitchen, with a bowl of gruel in her hand. She was
acquainted with all the particulars of the accident, and had been a
witness to my expulsion from the house. She stopped short on seeing me,
gave a slight scream, dropped the bowl of gruel, and prepared to make
her escape, as if from a wild beast, which I doubt not that I resembled;
since wretchedness, fasting, suffering, and desperation must all have
been depicted in my features. I placed myself in her path, and compelled
her to stop and listen to me. But before my eager questions could find
utterance, an outburst from her confirmed my worst fears.
"'Let me go!' she exclaimed. 'You villain! you will be putting my eyes
out next!'
'Where is Emily?' I cried. 'Let me see her!'
"'See her!' replied she. 'You horrid wretch! No! she has suffered enough
from you. She is satisfied herself now.'
'What do you mean?' shouted I, shaking the housekeeper violently by the
shoulder, for her words seared my very soul, and I was frantic.
"'I mean that Emily will never see anybody again; and if she had a
thousand eyes, you are the last person upon whom she would wish to
look!'
"'Does Emily hate me, too?' burst from me then, in the form of a
soliloquy rather than a question. The reply was ready, however. 'Hate
you? Yes--more than that; she cannot find words bad enough for you! She
mutters, even in her pain, 'Cruel!--wicked!' She shudders at the sound
of your name; and we are all forbidden to speak it in her presence.' I
waited to hear no more, but rushed out of the house. That moment was the
crisis of my life. The thunderbolt had fallen upon and crushed me. My
hopes, my happiness, my fortune, my good name, had gone before; but one
solitary light had, until now, glimmered in the darkness. It was Emily's
love. I had trusted in that--that only. It had passed away, and with it
my youth, my faith, my hope of heaven.
"From that moment I ceased to be myself. Then fell upon me the cloud in
which I have ever since been shrouded, and under which you have seen and
known me. In that instant the blight had come, under the gnawing
influence of which my happy laugh changed to the bitter smile; my frank
and pleasant speech to tones of ill-concealed irony and sarcasm; my hair
became prematurely grey, my features sharp and severe; my fellow-men, to
whom I hoped to prove some day a benefactor, were henceforth the armed
hosts of antagonists, with whom I would wage endless war--and the God
whom I had worshipped--whom I had believed in, as a just and faithful
friend and avenger--who was He?--where was He?--and why did He not right
my cause? What direful and premeditated deed of darkness had I been
guilty of that He should thus desert me? Alas!--I lost my faith in
Heaven!
"I know not what direction I took on leaving Mr. Graham's house. I have
no recollection of any of the streets through which I passed, though
doubtless they were all familiar; but I paused not until, having reached
the end of a wharf, I found myself gazing down into the deep water,
longing to take one mad leap and lose myself in everlasting oblivion!
But for this final blow, beneath which my manhood had fallen, I would
have cherished my life, at least until I could vindicate its fair fame;
I would never have left a blackened memory for men to dwell upon and for
Emily to weep over. But now what cared I for my fellow-men! And
Emily!--she had ceased to love, and would not mourn; and I longed for
the grave. There are moments in human life when a word, a look, or a
thought, may weigh down the balance in the scales of fate and decide a
destiny.
"So it was with me. I was incapable of forming any plan for myself; but
accident, as it were, decided for me. I was startled from the apathy
into which I had fallen by the sudden splashing of oars in the water
beneath, and in a moment a little boat was moored to a pier within a rod
of the spot where I stood. I also heard footsteps on the wharf, and,
turning, saw by the light of the moon, which was just appearing from
behind a heavy cloud, a stout seafaring man, with a heavy pea-jacket
under one arm and an old-fashioned carpet-bag in his left hand. He had a
ruddy, good-humoured face, and as he was about to pass me and leap into
the boat, where two sailors, with their oars dipped and ready for
motion, were awaiting him, he slapped me on the shoulder, and exclaimed,
'Well, my fine fellow, will you ship with us?' I answered as readily in
the affirmative; and, with one look in my face, and a glance at my
dress, which seemed to assure him of my station in life and probable
ability to make compensation for the passage, he said, in a laughing
tone, 'In with you, then!'
"To his astonishment--for he had scarcely believed me in earnest--I
sprang into the boat, and in a few moments was on board of a fine bark,
bound I knew not whither. The vessel's destination was Rio Janeiro--a
fact which I did not learn till we had been two or three days at sea,
and to which I felt wholly indifferent. There was one other passenger
beside myself--the captain's daughter, Lucy Grey, whom during the first
week I scarcely noticed, but who appeared to be as much at home, whether
in the cabin or on deck, as if she had passed her whole life at sea. I
might have made the entire passage without giving another thought to
this young girl--half child, half woman--had not my strange behaviour
led her so to conduct herself which surprised and finally interested me.
My wild and excited countenance, my constant restlessness, avoidance of
food, and indifference to everything about me, excited her wonder and
sympathy. She believed me partially deranged, and treated me
accordingly. She would take a seat on deck directly opposite mine, look
in my face, either ignorant or regardless of my observing her, and then
walk away with a heavy sigh. Occasionally she would offer me some little
delicacy, begging that I would eat; and as, touched by her kindness, I
took food more readily from her hand than any other, these little
attentions became at last habitual. As my manners grew calmer and I
settled into a melancholy which, though equally deep, was less fearful
than the feverish torment under which I had laboured, she became
reserved, and when I began to appear somewhat like my fellow-men, went
regularly to the table, and, instead of pacing the deck all night, spent
a part of it quietly in my state-room, Lucy absented herself wholly from
that part of the vessel where I passed the greater portion of the day,
and I seldom exchanged a word with her, unless I purposely sought her
society.
"The stormy weather drove me to the cabin, where she usually sat on the
transom reading or watching the troubled waves; and, as the voyage was
long, we were thrown much in each other's way, especially as Captain
Grey, who had invited me to ship with him, and who seemed to take an
interest in my welfare, good-naturedly encouraged an intercourse by
which he probably hoped I might be won from a state of melancholy that
seemed to grieve the jolly ship-master almost as much as it did his
kind-hearted, sensitive child.
"Lucy's shyness, therefore, wore gradually away, and before our tedious
passage was completed I ceased to be a restraint upon her. She talked
freely with me; for while I maintained a rigid silence concerning my own
past experiences, of which I could scarcely endure to think, she exerted
herself freely for my entertainment, and related with simple frankness
almost every circumstance of her past life. Sometimes I listened
attentively; sometimes, absorbed in my own painful reflections, I would
be deaf to her voice and forgetful of her presence. Then I often
observed that she had suddenly ceased speaking, and, starting from my
reverie and looking quickly up, would find her eyes fixed upon me so
reproachfully that, rallying my self-command, I would try to appear, and
sometimes became, seriously interested in the artless narratives of my
little entertainer. She told me that until she was fourteen years old
she lived with her mother in a little cottage on Cape Cod, their home
being only occasionally enlivened by the return of her father from his
long absences at sea. They would visit the city where his vessel lay,
pass a few weeks in great enjoyment, and then return to mourn the
departure of the cheerful sea-captain, and patiently count the weeks and
months until his return. She told me how her mother died; how bitterly
she mourned her loss, and how her father wept when he came home and
heard the news; how she had lived on shipboard ever since; and how sad
and lonely she felt in time of storms when she sat alone in the cabin
listening to the roar of the winds and waves.
"Tears would come into her eyes when she spoke of these things, and I
would look upon her with pity as one whom sorrow made my sister. Trial,
however, had not robbed her of an elastic, buoyant spirit; and when,
after the completion of some eloquent tale of early grief, the captain
would approach unseen and surprise her by a sudden joke or sly piece of
mischief, thus provoking her to retaliate, she was always ready for a
war of wits, a laughing frolic, or even a game of romps. Her tears dried
up, her merry voice and playful words would delight her father, and the
cabin would ring with peals of laughter; while I, shrinking from a mirth
sadly at variance with my own happiness, and the sound so discordant to
my sensitive nerves, would retire to brood over miseries for which it
was hopeless to expect sympathy which could not be shared, and with
which I must dwell alone.
"Such a misanthrope had my misfortunes made me that the sportive
raillery between the captain and his merry daughter, and the musical
laugh with which she would respond to the witticisms of two old sailors,
grated upon my ears like something scarce less than personal injuries;
nor could I have believed it possible that one so little able as Lucy to
comprehend the depth of my sufferings could feel any sincere compassion
for them had I not once or twice been touched to see how her innocent
mirth would give place to sudden sadness of countenance if she chanced
to encounter my woe-begone face, rendered doubly gloomy when contrasted
with the gaiety of herself and of her companions.
"But I must not linger too long upon the details of our life on
shipboard. I must forbear giving account of a terrific gale that we
encountered, during which, for two days and a night, poor Lucy was half
frantic with fear; while I, careless of outward discomforts and
indifferent to personal danger, was afforded an opportunity to requite
her kindness by such protection and encouragement as I was able to
render.
"Captain Grey died. We were within a week's sail of our destination when
he was taken ill, and three days before we were safely anchored in the
harbour of Rio he breathed his last. I shared with Lucy the office of
ministering to the suffering man, closed his eyes at last, and carried
the fainting girl in my arms to another part of the vessel. With kind
words and persuasions I restored her to her senses; and then, as the
full consciousness of her desolation rushed upon her, she sunk at once
into a state of hopeless despondency painful to witness. Captain Grey
had made no provision for his daughter. Well might the poor girl lament
her sad fate! for she was without a relative in the world, penniless,
and approaching a strange shore, which afforded no refuge to the orphan.
We buried her father in the sea; and that sad office fulfilled, I sought
Lucy and endeavoured to arouse her to a sense of her situation and
advise with her concerning the future; for we were now so near our port
that in a few hours we might be compelled to leave the vessel and seek
quarters in the city. She listened to me without replying. I hinted at
the necessity of my leaving her, and begged to know if she had any plans
for the future. She answered me only by a burst of tears. I begged her
not to weep.
"And then, with many sobs, and interrupting herself by frequent
exclamations of vehement sorrow, she threw herself upon my compassion,
and, with child-like artlessness, entreated me not to leave her or, as
she termed it, to desert her. She reminded me that she was alone in the
world; that the moment she stepped foot on shore she should be in a land
of strangers; and, appealing to my mercy, besought me not to leave her
to die alone.
"What could I do? I had nothing on earth to live for. We were both alike
orphaned and desolate. There was but one point of difference. I could
work and protect her; she could do neither for herself. It would be
something for me to live for; and for her, though but a refuge of
poverty and want, it was better than the exposure and suffering that
must otherwise await her. I told her how little I had to offer; that my
heart even was crushed and broken; but that I was ready to labour in her
behalf, to guard her from danger, to pity, and perhaps in time learn to
love her. The unsophisticated girl had never thought of marriage; she
had sought the protection of a friend, not a husband; but I explained to
her that the latter tie only would obviate the necessity of our parting;
and, in the humility of sorrow, she finally accepted my unflattering
offer.
"The only confidant to our sudden engagement, the only witness of the
marriage, which within a few hours ensued, was an old, weather-beaten
sailor, who had known and loved Lucy from her childhood--Ben Grant. He
accompanied us on shore and to the church. He followed us to the humble
lodgings with which we contrived for the present to be contented, and
devoted himself to Lucy with self-sacrificing, but in one instance,
alas! (as you will soon learn), with mistaken and fatal zeal.
"After much difficulty, I obtained employment from a man in whom I
accidentally recognized an old and valued friend of my father. He had
been in Rio several years, and was actively engaged in trade, and
willingly employed me as a clerk, occasionally despatching me from home
to transact business at a distance. My duties being regular and
profitable, we were soon raised above want, and I was enabled to place
my young wife in a situation of comfort.
"The sweetness of her disposition, the cheerfulness with which she
endured privation, the earnestness with which she strove to make me
happy, were not without effect. I perseveringly rallied from my gloom; I
succeeded in banishing the frown from my brow; and the premature
wrinkles, which her hand would softly sweep away, finally ceased to
return. The few months that I passed with your mother, Gertrude, form a
sweet episode in the memory of my stormy life. I came to love her
much--not as I loved Emily;--that could not be expected--but, as the
solitary flower that bloomed on the grave of all my early hopes, she
cast a fragrance round my path; and her child is not more dear to me,
because a part of myself, than as the memento of the cherished blossom
snatched hastily from my hand and rudely crushed.
"About two months after your birth, my child, and before your eyes had
ever learned to brighten at the sight of your father, who was
necessarily much from home, the business in which I was engaged called
me in the capacity of an agent to a station some distance from Rio. I
had been absent nearly a month, and had written regularly to Lucy,
informing her of all my movements (though I suspect the letters never
reached her), when the neighbourhood in which I was stationed became
infected with a fatal malaria. For the sake of my family I took every
measure to ward off contagion, but failed. I was seized with fever, and
lay for weeks near death. I was cruelly neglected during my illness; for
I had no friends near me, and my slender purse held out little
inducement for mercenary service; but my sufferings and forebodings on
account of Lucy and yourself were far greater than any which I endured
from my bodily torments, although the latter were great. I had all sorts
of imaginary fears; but nothing, alas! which could compare with the
reality that awaited me when, after my dreadful illness, I made my way,
destitute, ragged, and emaciated, back to Rio. I sought my former home.
It was deserted, and I was warned to flee from its vicinity, as the
fearful disease of fever had nearly depopulated that and the
neighbouring streets. I made every inquiry, but could obtain no
intelligence of my wife and child. I hastened to the charnel-house
where, during the raging of the pestilence, the unrecognized dead were
exposed; but among the disfigured remains it was impossible to
distinguish friends from strangers. I lingered about the city for weeks
in hopes to gain some information concerning Lucy; but could find no one
who had ever heard of her. All day I wandered about the streets and on
the wharves--the latter being places which Ben Grant (in whose faithful
charge I had left your mother and yourself) was in the habit of
frequenting--but not a syllable could I learn of any persons that
answered my description.
"My first thought had been that they would naturally seek my employer,
to learn, if possible, the cause of my prolonged absence; and on finding
my home empty I had hastened in search of him. But he too had, within a
recent period, fallen a victim to the prevailing distemper. His place of
business was closed and the establishment broken up. I continued my
inquiries until hope died within me. I was told that scarce an inmate of
the fatal neighbourhood where I had left my family had escaped; and
convinced, finally, that my fate was still pursuing me with an
unmitigated wrath, of which this last blow was but a single expression,
that I might have foreseen and expected, I madly agreed to work my
passage in the first vessel which promised me an escape from scenes so
fraught with harrowing recollections.
"And now commenced a course of wretched wandering. With varied ends in
view, following strongly contrasted employments, and with fluctuating
fortune, I have travelled over the world. My feet have trodden almost
every land. I have sailed on every sea and breathed the air of every
clime. I am familiar with the city and the wilderness, the civilized man
and the savage. I have learned the sad lesson that peace is nowhere, and
friendship, for the most part, but a name.
"Once during my wanderings I visited the home of my boyhood. Unseen and
unknown I trod a familiar ground and gazed on familiar, though time-worn
faces. I stood at the window of Mr. Graham's library; saw the contented,
happy countenance of Emily--happy in her blindness and her forgetfulness
of the past. A young girl sat near the fire endeavouring to read by its
flickering light. I knew not then what gave such a charm to her
thoughtful features, nor why my eyes dwelt upon them with a rare
pleasure; for there was no voice to proclaim to the father's heart that
he looked on the face of his child. I am not sure that the strong
impulse which prompted me then to enter, acknowledge my identity, and
beg Emily to speak to me a word of forgiveness, might not have prevailed
over the dread of her displeasure; but Mr. Graham at the moment
appeared, cold and implacable as ever; I gazed an instant, then fled
from the house.
"Although in the various labours which I was compelled to undertake to
earn a decent maintenance, I had more than once met with such success as
to give me temporary independence, and to enable me to indulge in
expensive travelling, I had never amassed a fortune; indeed, I had not
cared to do so, since I had no use for money, except to employ it in the
gratification of my immediate wants. Accident, however, at last thrust
upon me a wealth which I could scarcely be said to have sought.
"After a year spent in the wilderness of the west, amid adventures the
relation of which now would seem to you almost incredible, I gradually
continued my retreat across the country, and after encountering
innumerable hardships, which had no other object than the indulgence of
my vagrant habits, I found myself in that land which has recently been
termed the land of promise, but which has proved to many a greedy
emigrant a land of deceit. For me, however, who sought it not, it
showered gold. I was among the earliest discoverers of its
treasure-vaults--one of the most successful, though the least laborious,
of the seekers after gain. Nor was it merely, or indeed chiefly, at the
mines that fortune favoured me. With the first results of my labours I
purchased an immense tract of land, little dreaming at the time that
those desert acres were destined to become the streets and squares of a
great and prosperous city. So that without effort, almost without my own
knowledge, I achieved the greatness which springs from untold wealth.
But this was not all. The blessed accident which led me to this golden
land was the means of disclosing a pearl of price--a treasure in
comparison with which California and all its mines shrink, to my mind,
into insignificance. You know how the war-cry went forth to all lands,
and men of every name and nation brought their arms to the field of
fortune. Famine came next, with disease and death in its train; and many
a man, hurrying on to reap the golden harvest, fell by the wayside,
without once seeing the waving of the yellow grain.
"Half scorning the greedy rabble, I could not refuse in this, my time of
prosperity, to minister to the wants of such as fell in the way; and now
for once my humanity found its own reward. A miserable, ragged,
half-starved, and apparently dying man crept to the door of my tent and
asked in a feeble voice for charity. I did not refuse to admit him into
my narrow domicile and to relieve his sufferings. He was the victim of
want rather than disease, and, his hunger appeased, the savage brutality
of his coarse nature soon manifested itself in the dogged indifference
with which he received a stranger's bounty and the gross ingratitude
with which he abused my hospitality. A few days served to restore him to
his strength; and then, anxious to dismiss my visitor, whose conduct had
already excited suspicions of his good faith, I gave him warning that he
must depart; at the same time placing in his hand a sufficient amount of
gold to insure his support until he could reach the mines which were his
professed destination.
"He appeared dissatisfied, and begged permission to remain until the
next morning, as the night was near, and he had no shelter provided. To
this I made no objection, little imagining how base a serpent I was
harbouring. At midnight I was awakened from my light and
easily-disturbed sleep to find my lodger busily engaged in rifling my
property and preparing to take an unceremonious leave of my dwelling.
Nor did his villainy end here. Upon my seizing and charging him with the
theft, he snatched a weapon and attempted the life of his benefactor.
But I was prepared to ward off the stroke, and succeeded in a few
moments in subduing my desperate antagonist. He now crouched at my feet
in such abject submission as might be expected from so vile a knave.
Well might he tremble with fear; for the Lynch-law was then in full
force for criminals like him. I should probably have handed the traitor
over to his fate; but, ere I had time to do so, he held out to my
cupidity a bribe so tempting that I forgot the deservings of my knavish
guest in the eagerness with which I bartered his freedom as the price of
its possession.
"He freely emptied his pockets at my bidding, and restored to me the
gold, for the loss of which I never should have repined. As the base
metal rolled at my feet, there glittered among the coins a jewel as
truly _mine_ as any of the rest, but which, as it met my sight, filled
me with greater surprise than if it had been a new-fallen star.
"It was a ring of peculiar design and workmanship, which had once been
the property of my father, and after his death had been worn by my
mother until the time of her marriage with Mr. Graham, when it was
transferred to myself. I had ever prized it as a precious heirloom, and
it was one of the few valuables which I took with me when I fled from my
step-father's house. This ring, with a watch and some other trinkets,
had been left in the possession of Lucy when I parted with her at Rio,
and the sight of it once more seemed to me like a voice from the grave.
I eagerly sought to learn from my prisoner the source whence it had been
obtained, but he maintained an obstinate silence. It was now my turn to
plead; and at length the promise of instant permission to depart,
'unwhipped by justice,' at the conclusion of his tale, wrung from him a
secret fraught to me with vital interest.
"This man was Stephen Grant, the son of my old friend Ben. He had heard
from his father's lips the story of your mother's misfortunes; and the
circumstance of a violent quarrel which arose between Ben and his vixen
wife at the young stranger's introduction to their household impressed
the tale upon his recollection. From his account it appeared that my
long-continued absence from Lucy, during the time of my illness, was
construed by her honest but distrustful counsellor and friend into cruel
desertion. The poor girl, to whom my early life was all a mystery which
she had never shared, and to whom much of my character and conduct was
inexplicable, began soon to feel convinced of the correctness of the old
sailor's suspicions and fears. She had already applied to my employer
for information concerning me; but he, who had heard of the pestilence
to which I was exposed, and fully believed me to be among the dead,
forbore to distress her by a communication of his belief, and replied to
her questionings with an obscurity which served to give new force to her
hitherto uncertain surmises. She positively refused, however, to leave
our home; and, clinging to the hope of my final return thither, remained
where I had left her until the terrible fever began its ravages. Her
small stock of money was by this time consumed; her strength both of
mind and body gave way; and Ben, becoming every day more confident that
the simple-hearted Lucy had been betrayed and forsaken, persuaded her at
last to sell her furniture, and with the sum thus raised flee the
infected country before it should be too late. She sailed for Boston in
the same vessel in which Ben shipped before the mast; and on reaching
that port her humble protector took her to the only home he had to
offer.
"There your mother's sad fate found a mournful termination; and you, her
infant child, were left to the mercy of the cruel woman who, but for
consciousness of guilt and her fear of its betrayal, would doubtless
have thrust you at once from the miserable shelter her dwelling
afforded. This guilt consisted in a foul robbery committed by Nan and
her infamous son upon your innocent mother, now rendered, through her
feebleness, an easy prey to their rapacity. The fruits of this vile
theft, however, were not participated in by Nan, whose promising son so
far exceeded her in duplicity and craft that, having obtained possession
of the jewels for the alleged purpose of bartering them away, he
reserved such as he thought proper, and appropriated to his own use the
proceeds of the remainder.
"The antique ring which I now hold in my possession, the priceless relic
of a mournful tragedy, would have shared the fate of the rest but for
its apparent worthlessness. To the luckless Stephen, however, it proved
at last a temporary salvation from the felon's doom which must finally
await that hardened sinner; and to me--ah! to _me_--it remains to be
proved whether the knowledge of the secrets to which it has been the key
will bless my future life or darken it with a heavier curse!
Notwithstanding the information thus gained, and the exciting idea to
which it gave rise, that my child might be still living and finally
restored to me, I could not yet feel any security that these daring
hopes were not destined to be crushed in their infancy, and that my
newly-found treasure might not again elude my eager search. To my
inquiries concerning you, Gertrude, Stephen, who had no longer any
motives for concealing the truth, declared his inability to acquaint me
with any particulars of a later period than the time of your residence
with Trueman Flint. He knew that the lamplighter had taken you to his
home, and was accidentally made aware, a few months later, of your
continuance in that place of refuge from the old man's being such a fool
as to call upon his mother and voluntarily make compensation for the
injury done to her windows in your outburst of childish revenge.
"I could learn nothing more; but it was enough to inspire all my
energies to recover my child. I hastened to Boston, had no difficulty in
tracing your benefactor, and, though he had been long dead, found many a
truthful witness to his well-known virtues. Nor, when I asked for his
adopted child, did I find her forgotten in the quarter of the city where
she had passed her childhood. More than one grateful voice was ready to
respond to my questioning, and to proclaim the cause they had to
remember the girl who, having experienced the trials of poverty, made it
both her duty and her pleasure of prosperity to administer to the wants
of a neighbourhood whose sufferings she had aforetime both witnessed and
shared. But, alas! to complete the sum of sad vicissitudes with which my
unhappy destiny was already crowded, at the moment when I was assured
of my daughter's safety, and my ears were greeted with the sweet praises
that accompanied the mention of her name, there fell upon me like a
thunderbolt the startling words, 'She is now the adopted child of sweet
Emily Graham, the blind girl.'
"Oh, strange coincidence! Oh, righteous retribution! which, at the very
moment when I was picturing to myself the consummation of my cherished
hopes, crushed me once more beneath the iron hand of a destiny that
would not be cheated of its victim! My child, my only child, bound by
the gratitude and love of years to one in whose face I scarcely dared to
look, lest my soul should be withered by the expression of condemnation
which the consciousness of my presence would inspire!
"The seas and lands which had hitherto divided us seemed not, to my
tortured fancy, so insurmountable a barrier between myself and my
long-lost daughter as the dreadful reflection that the only earthly
being whose love I had hoped in time to win had been reared from her
infancy in a household where my name was a thing abhorred.
"Stung to the quick by the harrowing thought that all my prayers,
entreaties, and explanations could never undo her early impressions, and
that all my labours and all my love could never call forth other than a
cold and formal recognition of my claims, I half resolved to leave my
child in ignorance of her birth and never seek to look upon her face,
rather than subject her to the terrible necessity of choosing between
the friend whom she loved and the father from whose crimes she had
learned to shrink with horror and dread. After struggling long with
contending emotions, I resolved to make one effort to see and recognize
you, Gertrude, and at the same time guard myself from discovery. I
trusted to the change which time had wrought in my appearance to conceal
me effectually from all eyes but those which had known me intimately,
and therefore approached Mr. Graham's house without the slightest fear
of betrayal. I found it empty and apparently deserted.
"I now directed my steps to the well-remembered counting-house, and here
learned from the clerk that the whole household, including yourself, had
been passing the winter in Paris, and were at present at a German
watering-place. Without further inquiry I took the steamer to
Liverpool, thence hastened to Baden-Baden--a trifling excursion in the
eyes of a traveller of my experience. Without risking myself in the
presence of my step-father, I took an early opportunity to obtain an
introduction to Mrs. Graham, and, thanks to her unreserved conversation,
learned that Emily and yourself were left in Boston, and were under the
care of Dr. Jeremy.
"On my return voyage, immediately undertaken, I made the acquaintance of
Dr. Gryseworth and his daughter--an acquaintance which proved of great
value in facilitating my intercourse with yourself. Once more arrived in
Boston, Dr. Jeremy's house looked as if closed for the season. A man
making some repairs about the door-step informed me that the family were
absent from town. He was not aware of the direction they had taken, but
the servants were at home and might acquaint me with their route. Upon
this I boldly rung the door-bell. It was answered by Mrs. Ellis, who
nearly twenty years ago had cruelly sounded in my ears the death-knell
of all my hopes in life. I saw that my incognito was secure, as she met
my piercing glance without shrinking or taking flight, as I fully
expected she would do at sight of the ghost of my former self.
"She replied to my queries as coolly as she had done during the day to
some dozen of the doctor's disappointed patients--telling me that he had
left that morning for New York, and would not be back for two or three
weeks. Nothing could have been more favourable to my wishes than the
chance thus afforded of overtaking your party and, as a travelling
companion, introducing myself gradually to your notice.
"You know how this purpose was effected; how, now in the rear, and now
in advance, I nevertheless maintained a constant proximity to your
footsteps. To add to the comfort of yourself and Emily, to learn your
plans, forestall your wishes, secure to your use the best of rooms, and
bribe to your service the most devoted of attendants--I spared neither
pains, trouble, nor expense. For much of the freedom with which I
approached you and made myself an occasional member of your circle, I
was indebted to Emily's blindness; for I could not doubt that otherwise
time and its changes would fail to conceal from her my identity, and I
should meet with a premature recognition. Nor until the final act of
the drama, when death stared us all in the face, and concealment became
impossible, did I once trust my voice to her hearing.
"How closely, during those few weeks, I watched and weighed your every
word and action, seeking even to read your thoughts in your face, none
can tell whose acuteness is not sharpened and vivified by motives so
all-engrossing as mine; and who can measure the anguish of the fond
father who day by day learned to worship his child with a more absorbing
idolatry, and yet dared not clasp her to his heart?
"Especially when I saw you the victim of grief and trouble did I long to
assert a claim to your confidence; and more than once my self-control
would have given way but for the dread inspired by the gentle
Emily--gentle to all but me. I could not brook the thought that with my
confession I should cease to be the trusted friend and become the
abhorred parent. I preferred to maintain my distant and unacknowledged
guardianship of my child rather than that she should behold in me the
dreaded tyrant who might tear her from the home from which he himself
had been driven.
"And so I kept silent; and sometimes present to your sight, but still
oftener hid from view, I hovered around your path until that dreadful
day, which you will long remember, when, everything forgotten but the
safety of yourself and Emily, my heart spoke out and betrayed my secret.
And now you know all--my follies, misfortunes, sufferings, and sins!
"Can you love me, Gertrude? It is all I ask. I seek not to steal you
from your present home--to rob poor Emily of a child whom she values
perhaps as much as I. The only balm my wounded spirit seeks is the
simple, guileless confession that you will at least try to love your
father.
"I have no hope in this world, and none, alas! beyond, but in yourself.
Could you feel my heart now beating against its prison bars, you would
realize, as I do, that unless soothed it will burst ere long. Will you
soothe it by your pity, my sweet, my darling child? Will you bless it by
your love? If so, come, clasp your arms around me, and whisper to me
words of peace. Within sight of your window, in the old summer-house at
the end of the garden, with straining ear, I wait listening for your
footsteps."