WHO WAS LINA FRENCH?
James Harrington and Lina left the same roof within a few hours of each
other, without warning or explanation. Was it strange that Mabel should
be tortured with wild doubts, or that her son should believe the
step-brother whom he had looked up to with such honest devotion, and the
girl he had loved so truly, domestic conspirators who had been deceiving
him all the time?
Poor Ralph! these doubts fell with cruel force on his generous nature.
His confidence was all swept away--the best jewel of his life had fallen
off. To him, love had no longer the holiness of truth. Household
trust--faith in human goodness--all was disturbed. He was wild with
indignation, torn with a thousand conflicting feelings; sometimes
heart-broken with grief--again, reckless and defiant; then a spirit of
bitter retaliation seized upon him. What was Lina, with her gentle
affections and pretty reserves, that he should waste a life in regrets
for her, while another, ardent, impassioned, and loving him madly, was
pining to death for the affection he had thrown away so lavishly for
nothing? What, after all, was there to charm more in one woman than
another? Lina was false; why should he remain faithful?
These were wild, rash thoughts; but Ralph was young, tortured in his
first love, and tempted by an artful, impassioned woman, whose perverse
will carried the strength of fate with it.
Still, it was only at times that his heart rose hotly against its old
nature. There was more of scorn and rage, mingled with the certainty
that Agnes Barker loved him, than of real passion, but it assuaged the
humiliation of Lina's falsehood, and the consciousness of her attachment
diverted the grief that would otherwise have consumed him. Though
maddened by all these conflicting passions, the young man had sought
desperately after the lost girl from the moment her absence was
discovered on the morning after the storm, but she seemed to have
disappeared like a shadow from the earth; for from the hour when she
left Ben Benson's boat-house, not a trace of her movements could be
found.
For the third time, Ralph went down to the boat-house to question the
old sailor, whom he found housed up, as he called it, in a fit of sullen
grief, which it required some tact to break in upon.
Ben was sitting in his domicile before a rousing fire, which he now and
then stooped to feed with hickory logs, till the whole room was filled
with a warm glow of light. So many additions and ornaments had been
added to the boat-house, that it took the appearance of a ship's cabin
more than anything else. The fire revealed a trap-door in the centre of
the room, which answered for a gangway, while coils of rope, carpenters'
tools, cans of pitch, and bits of iron, all in their place and
ship-shape, as Ben would have said, gave both a busy and maritime look
to the premises.
Everything was very comfortable in the boat-house, but Ben kept piling
on wood and raking out the coals with an iron bar, as if the heat and
light were still insufficient, when in fact he thought nothing of
either, but was making desperate efforts to work off the anxieties that
had beset him like so many hounds, ever since his interview with Lina.
"What can a feller do now?" he said, looking wistfully up to the models
of gun-boats, brigs, and clippers, that occupied the rude shelves and
brackets on the wall, as if taking counsel from them. "I have sarched
the woods from hill to hill, and nary a sign of her. She 'caint a gone
and fell through the ice, for it's friz two feet thick; and, as for
running away, or going for to kill herself, it wasn't in the gal to do
no sich thing. Ben Benson, you was a brute, beast, and two or three
sarpents to boot, not to tell the gal all she wanted to know. You
obstinate old wretch, you've gone and done it now, and no mistake. It's
as much as I can do to keep from knocking you on the head with a
marlin-spike, you sneakin' old sea-dog! What if she was dead now, friz
stiff agin a tree, or a lyin' in the bottom of the river, what would you
think of yourself, I'd like to know?"
Thus half in muttered breath, half in thought, Ben gave forth the burden
of his anxieties, till at last self-reproachful beyond endurance, he
seized a fragment of pine wood, and opening his jack-knife with
superfluous energy, began to whittle, as if his life depended on
sharpening the stick to a point.
He was interrupted by the crunching sound of snow beneath footsteps that
came in haste toward the boat-house. Ben cut a deep gash into the wood,
and sat motionless, with his hand on the knife, listening.
"It's too heavy--she never trod down the snow-crust like that, poor
bird!" and, resuming his work, Ben kicked the shavings he had made into
the fire, and flung the mutilated pine after them.
"Is't you, mister Ralph?" said Ben, rising as the door opened, and
seating himself moodily on a bench, that his guest might come to the
fire. "You look flustered, and out of sorts, but this isn't no place to
get ship-shape in. It's awful lonesome here, sin' that night."
"Then, you have heard nothing!"
"No, not a whisper. That fool, Ben Benson, has been sarching and
sarching, like an old desarter as he is, but it ain't no sort o' good;
the gal may be dead for what he cares--a toasting hisself before a fire,
while she--may be Mr. James has hearn something."
"Mr. James Harrington has gone also," answered Ralph, bitterly. "It's no
use searching further. They have fled together. James Harrington, the
man whom I have looked up to all my life, the saint, the angel; he has
disappeared as she did. They cheated me from the beginning. He has taken
advantage of his wealth, and she--what chance had a poor fellow like me
against his millions? It was hardly worth while to deceive me so
shamefully though; but craft is natural to the sex, I believe." There
was a struggle between grief and rage in the young man's voice, and
while his eye blazed his lips began to quiver.
Ben slowly stooped forward, and resting an elbow on each knee, touched
his fore-fingers thoughtfully together, while his eyes, clear and honest
as those of a Newfoundland dog, were bent on the young man's face. At
last he burst forth.
"Ralph Harrington, I should say, that next to that mule-headed feller,
Ben Benson, as isn't worth the husks he sleeps on--you was the
consarnedest fool that ever sot hisself up with an opinion. You talk
agin wimmen afore the moustachoes are black on your upper lip, because
there's something about one on 'em, as you can't make out. Then, there's
Mister James, a man as that ere shark Ben Benson ain't afeared to swear
by through thick and thin, the most gentlemanliest Harrington as ever
drawd breath, you set up to speak again him, it's enough to agrivate a
British admiral."
Ralph had scarcely heeded this speech, but stood with one elbow resting
upon the rude shelf, that served as a mantelpiece, sullen and
thoughtful.
"I was in hopes you would tell me something. Oh! Ben, it seems
impossible to believe that fair, young creature so false," he said, at
length giving way to the feelings that oppressed him, "what faith can
one have in human nature after this?"
"Mister Ralph Harrington, you ain't no sailor, to talk in that ere way.
There's many a stout ship as goes down in a storm, with its timbers
sound and its masts standing. Then, agin, there's others as give
themselves up to the storm, and lead off hither and yon, but get back to
their reckoning, and do good sarvice arter all. Wimmen are like
ships--some get unrigged--some founder--some go agin wind and weather,
right in the teeth of the world, and some drift like poor little boats,
without compass or rudder, but yet, the generality cast anchor in deep,
clear water at last, and for one wreck, thousands and thousands come in
with all sails set--only Mister Ralph, remember this. The craft that
ales goes steadily and safe, cuts a still wake; but your leaky vessels
makes any amount of whirlpools as they go down. It's only boys,"
continued Ben, taking the tobacco from his mouth, and casting it
indignantly into the fire--"It's only boys as knows nothing, and men as
knows too much, that ever speak in this ere wholesale way about wimmen.
Ralph, you're young, that's all."
"I am distracted, Ben; Heaven knows how gladly I would believe her
blameless, but her manner changed toward me so strangely, she was
evidently premeditating this abandonment; but that she should go
off--and with him, of all men upon earth. Oh! Ben, what man, not a fool,
could persist in his faith, after that."
"I tell you, it wasn't that as driv the gal away. She wanted to know
something as I wouldn't tell her. Something more'en Ben Benson reckoned
on, was in her mind; she got discouraged because he wouldn't tell her."
"If I'd told her, she'd a been here now." Here Ben covered his face with
both hands and cried out, "God forgive me! God forgive me!"