POOR ’LINA.
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.