HUGH AND ALICE
Three weeks had passed away since that memorable ride. Mr. Liston, after
paying to the proper recipients the money due for Mosside, had returned
to Boston, leaving the neighborhood to gossip of Alice's generosity,
and to wonder how much she was worth. It was a secret yet that Lulu and
Muggins were hers, but the story of Rocket was known, and numerous were
the surmises as to what would be the result of her daily, familiar
intercourse with Hugh. Already was the effect of her presence visible in
his improved appearance, his gentleness of manner, his care to observe
all the little points of etiquette never practiced by him before, and
his attention to his own personal appearance. His trousers were no
longer worn inside his boots, or his soft hat jammed into every
conceivable shape, while Ellen Tiffton, who came often to Spring Bank,
and was supposed to be good authority, pronounced him almost as stylish
looking as any man in Woodford.
To Hugh, Alice was everything, and he did not know himself how much he
loved her, save when he thought of Irving Stanley, and then the keen,
sharp pang of jealous pain which wrung his heart told him how strong was
the love he bore her. And Alice, in her infatuation concerning the
mysterious Golden Hair, did much to feed the flame. He was to her like a
beloved brother; indeed, she had one day playfully entered into a
compact with him that she should be his sister, and never dreaming of
the mischief she was doing, she treated him with all the familiarity of
a pure, loving sister. It was Alice who rode with him almost daily. It
was Alice who sang his favorite songs. It was Alice who brought his
armchair in the evening when his day's work was over; Alice who worked
his slippers; Alice who brushed his coat when he was going to town;
Alice who sometimes tied his cravat, standing on tiptoe, with her fair
face so fearfully near to his that all his powers of self-denial were
needed to keep from touching his lips to the smooth brow gleaming so
white and fair before his eyes.
Sometimes the wild thought crossed his mind that possibly he might win
her for himself, but it was repudiated as soon as formed, and so,
between hope and a kind of blissful despair, blissful so long as Alice
stayed with him as she was now, Hugh lived on, until at last the evening
came when Adah was to leave Spring Bank on the morrow. She had intended
going immediately after the sale at Mosside, but Willie had been ailing
ever since, and that had detained her. Everything which Alice could do
for her had been done. Old Sam, at thoughts of parting with his little
charge, had cried his dim eyes dimmer yet. Mrs. Worthington, too, had
wept herself nearly sick, for now that the parting drew near she began
to feel how dear to her was the young girl who had come to them so
strangely.
"More like a daughter you seem to me," she had said to Adah, in speaking
of her going; "and once I had a wild--" here she stopped, leaving the
sentence unfinished, for she did not care to tell Adah of the shock it
had given her when Hugh first pointed out to her the faint mark on
Adah's forehead.
It was fainter now even than then, for with increasing color and health
it seemed to disappear, and Mrs. Worthington could scarcely see it, when
with a caressing movement of her hand she put the silken hair back from
Adah's brow and kissed the bluish veins.
"There is none there. It was all a fancy," she murmured to herself, and
then thinking of 'Lina, she said to Adah what she had all along meant to
say, that if the Richards' family should question her of 'Lina, she was
to divulge nothing to her disparagement, whether she were rich or poor,
high or low. "You must not, of course, tell any untruths. I do not ask
that, but I--oh, I sometimes wish they need not know that you came from
here, as that would save all trouble, and 'Lina is so--so--"
Mrs. Worthington did not finish the sentence, for Adah instantly
silenced her by answering frankly:
"I do not intend they shall know, not at present certainly."
Adah retired early, as did both Mrs. Worthington and Densie, for all
were unusually tired; only Hugh, as he supposed, was up, and he sat by
the parlor fire where they had passed the evening. He was very sorry
Adah was going, but it was not so much of her he was thinking as of
Alice. Had she dreamed of his real feelings, she never would have done
what she did, but she was wholly unconscious of it, and so, when, late
that night, she returned to the parlor in quest of something she had
left, and found him sitting there alone, she paused a moment on the
threshold, wondering if she had better join him or go away. His back was
toward her, and he did not hear her light step, so intently was he
gazing into the burning grate, and trying to frame the words he should
say if ever he dared tell Alice Johnson of his love.
There was much girlish playfulness in Alice's nature, and sliding across
the carpet, she clasped both her hands before his eyes, and exclaimed:
"A penny for your thoughts."
Hugh started as suddenly as if some apparition had appeared before him,
and blushing guiltily, clasped and held upon his face the little soft,
warm hands which did not tremble, but lay still beneath his own. It was
Providence which sent her there, he thought; Providence indicating that
he might speak, and he would.
"I am glad you have come. I wish to talk with you," he said, drawing her
down into a chair beside him, and placing his arm lightly across its
back. "What sent you here, Alice? I supposed you had retired," he
continued, bending upon her a look which made her slightly
uncomfortable.
But she soon recovered, and answered laughingly:
"I, too, supposed you had retired. I came for my scissors, and finding
you here alone, thought I would startle you, but you have not told me
yet of what you were thinking."
"Of the present, past and future," he replied; then, letting his hand
drop from the back of the chair upon her shoulder, he continued: "May I
talk freely with you? May I tell you of myself, what I was, what I am,
what I hope to be?"
Her cheeks burned dreadfully, and her voice was not quite steady, as,
rising from her seat, she said:
"I like a stool better than this chair. I'll bring it and sit at your
feet. There, now I am ready," and seating herself at a safe distance
from him, Alice waited for him to commence.
She grew tired of waiting, and turning her lustrous eyes upon him, said
gently:
"You seem unhappy about something. Is it because Adah leaves to-morrow?
I am sorry, too; sorry for me, sorry for you; but, Hugh, I will do what
I can to fill her place. I will be the sister you need so much. Don't
look so wretched; it makes me feel badly to see you."
Alice's sympathy was getting the better of her again, and she moved her
stool a little nearer to Hugh, while she involuntarily laid her hand
upon his knee. That decided him; and while his heart throbbed almost to
bursting, he began by saying:
"I am in rather a gloomy mood to-night, I'll admit. I do feel Adah's
leaving us very much; but that is not all. I have wished to talk with
you a long time--wished to tell you how I feel. May I, Alice?--may I
open to you my whole heart, and show you what is there?"
For a moment Alice felt a thrill of fear--a dread of what the opening
of his heart to her might disclose. Then she remembered Golden Hair,
whose name she had never heard him breathe, save as it passed his
delirious lips. It was of her he would talk; he would tell her of that
hidden love whose existence she felt sure was not known at Spring Bank.
Alice would rather not have had this confidence, for the deep love-life
of such as Hugh Worthington seemed to her a sacred thing; but he looked
so white, so careworn, so much as if it would be a relief, that Alice
answered at last:
"Yes, Hugh, you may tell, and I will listen."
He began by telling Alice first of his early boyhood, uncheered by a
single word of sympathy save as it came from dear Aunt Eunice, who alone
understood the wayward boy whom people thought so bad.
"Even she did not quite understand me," he said; "she did not dream of
that hidden recess in my heart which yearned so terribly for a human
love--for something or somebody to check the evil passions so rapidly
gaining the ascendant. Neither did she know how often, in the silent
night, the boy they thought so flinty, so averse to womankind, wept for
the love he had no hope of gaining.
"Then mother and Ad came to Spring Bank, and that opened to me a new
era. In my odd way, I loved my mother so much--so much; but Ad--say,
Alice, is it wicked in me if I can't love Ad?"
"She is your sister," was Alice's reply; and Hugh rejoined:
"Yes--my sister. I'm sorry for it, even, if it's wicked to be sorry. She
gave me back only scorn and bitter words, until my heart closed up
against her, and I harshly judged all others by her--all but one!" and
Hugh's voice grew very low and tender in its tone, while Alice felt that
now he was nearing the Golden Hair.
"Away off in New England, among the Yankee hills, there was a pure,
white blossom growing; a blossom so pure, so fair, that few, very few,
were worthy even so much as to look upon it, as day by day it unfolded
some new beauty. There was nothing to support this flower but a single
frail parent stalk, which snapped asunder one day, and Blossom was left
alone. It was a strange idea, transplanting it to another soil; for the
atmosphere of Spring Bank was not suited to such as she. But she came,
and, as by magic, the whole atmosphere was changed--changed at least to
one--the bad, wayward Hugh, who dared to love this fair young girl with
a love stronger than his life. For her he would do anything, and
beneath her influence he did improve rapidly. He was conscious of it
himself--conscious of a greater degree of self-respect--a desire to be
what she would like to have him.
"She was very, very beautiful; more so than anything Hugh had ever
looked upon. Her face was like an angel's face, and her hair--much like
yours, Alice;" and he laid his hand on the bright head, now bent down,
so that he could not see that face so like an angel's.
The little hand, too, had slid from his knee, and, fastlocked within the
other, was buried in Alice's lap, as she listened with throbbing heart
to the story Hugh was telling.
"In all the world there was nothing so dear to Hugh as this young girl.
He thought of her by day and dreamed of her by night, seeing always in
the darkness her face, with its eyes of blue bending over him--hearing
the music of her voice, like the falling of distant water, and even
feeling the soft touch of her hands as he fancied them laid upon his
brow. She was good, too, as beautiful; and it was this very goodness
which won on Hugh so fast, making him pray often that he might be worthy
of her--for, Alice, he came at last to dream that he could win her; she
was so kind to him--she spoke to him so softly, and, by a thousand
little acts, endearing herself to him more and more.
"Heaven forgive her if she misled him all this while; but she did not.
It were worse than death to think she did--to know I've told you this in
vain--have offered you my heart only to have it thrust back upon me as
something you do not want. Speak, Alice! in mercy, speak! Can it be that
I'm mistaken?"
Alice saw how she had unwittingly led him on, and her white lips
quivered with pain. Lifting up her head at last, she exclaimed:
"You don't mean me, Hugh! Oh, you don't mean me?"
"Yes, darling," and he clasped in his own the hand raised imploringly
toward him. "Yes, darling, I mean you. Will you be my wife?"
Alice had never before heard a voice so earnest, so full of meaning, as
the one now pleading with her to be what she could not be. She must do
something, and sliding from her stool she sank upon her knees--her
proper attitude--upon her knees before Hugh, whom she had wronged so
terribly, and burying her face in Hugh's own hands, she sobbed:
"Oh, Hugh, Hugh! you don't know what you ask. I love you dearly, but
only as my brother--believe me, Hugh, only as a brother. I wanted one so
much--one of my own, I mean; but God denied that wish, and gave me you
instead. I'm sorry I ever came here, but I cannot go away. I've learned
to love my Kentucky home. Let me stay just the same. Let me really be
what I thought I was, your sister. You will not send me away?"
She looked up at him now, but quickly turned away, for the expression of
his white, haggard face was more than she could bear, and she knew there
was a pang, keener even than any she had felt, a pang which must be
terrible, to crush a strong man as Hugh was crushed.
"Forgive me, Hugh," she said, as he did not speak, but sat gazing at her
in a kind of stunned bewilderment. "You would not have me for your wife,
if I did not love you?"
"Never, Alice, never!" he answered. "But it is not any easier to bear. I
don't know why I asked you, why I dared hope that you could think of me.
I might have known you could not. Nobody does. I cannot win their love.
I don't know how."
Alice neither looked up nor moved, only sobbed piteously, and this more
than aught else helped Hugh to choke down his own sorrow for the sake of
comforting her. The sight of her distress moved him greatly, for he knew
it was grief that she had so cruelly misled him.
"Alice, darling," he said again, this time as a mother would soothe her
child. "Alice, darling, it hurts me more to see you thus than your
refusal did. I am not wholly selfish in my love. I'd rather you should
be happy than to be happy myself. I would not for the world take to my
bosom an unwilling wife. I should be jealous even of my own caresses,
jealous lest the very act disgusted her more and more. You did not mean
to deceive me. It was I that deceived myself. I forgive you fully, and
ask you to forget that to-night has ever been. It cut me sorely at
first, Alice, to hear you tell me so, but I shall get over it; the wound
will heal."
"Oh, Hugh, don't; you break my heart. I'd rather you should scorn, or
even hate me, for the sorrow I have brought. Such unselfish kindness
will kill me," Alice sobbed, for never had she been so touched as by
this insight into the real character of the man she had refused.
He would not hold her long in his arms, though it were bliss to do so,
and putting her gently in the chair, he leaned his own poor sick head
upon the mantel, while Alice watched him with streaming eyes and an
aching heart, which even then half longed to give itself into his
keeping. At last it was her turn to speak, hers the task to comfort. The
prayer she had inwardly breathed for guidance to act aright had not been
unheard, and with a strange calmness she arose, and laying her hand on
Hugh's arm, bade him be seated, while she told him what she had to say.
He obeyed her, sinking into the offered chair, and then standing before
him, she began:
"You do not wish me to go away, you say. I have no desire to go, except
it should be better for you. Even though I may not be your wife, I can,
perhaps, minister to your happiness; and, Hugh, we will forget to-night,
forget what has occurred, and be to each other what we were before,
brother and sister. There must be no particular perceptible change of
manner, lest others should suspect what has passed between us. Do you
agree to this?"
He bowed his head, and Alice drew a step nearer to him, hesitating a
moment ere she continued:
"You speak of a rival. I do not know that you have one. Sure it is I am
bound to no one by any pledge, or promise, or tie, unless it be a tie of
gratitude."
Hugh glanced up quickly now, and the words, "You are mistaken; it was
not Irving Stanley," trembled on his lips, but his strong will fought
them back, and Alice went on.
"I will be frank with you, and say that I have seen one who pleased me,
both for the noble qualities he possessed, and because I had thought so
much of meeting him, of expressing to him my thanks for a great favor
done when I was only a child. There's a look in your face like his; you
remind me of him often; and, Hugh--" the little hand pressed more
closely on Hugh's shoulder, while Alice's breath came heavily, "And,
Hugh, it may be, that in time I can conscientiously give you a different
answer from what I did to-night. I may love as your wife should love
you; and--and, Hugh, if I do, I'll tell you so at the proper time."
There was a gleam of sunshine now to illumine the thick darkness, and,
in the first moments of his joy Hugh wound his arm around the slight
form, and tried to bring it nearer to him. But Alice stepped back and
answered:
"No, Hugh, that would be wrong. It may be I shall never come to love
you save as I love you now, but I'll try--I will try," and unmindful of
her charge to him, Alice parted the damp curls clustering around his
forehead, and looked into his face with an expression which made his
heart bound and throb with the sudden hope that even now she loved him
better than she supposed.
It was growing very late, and the clock in the adjoining room struck one
ere Alice bade Hugh good-night, saying to him:
"No one must know of this. We'll be just the same to each other as we
have been."
"Yes, just the same, if that can be," Hugh answered, and so they parted.