Young Oliver Hampden grew up clear eyed, strong, and good to look at,
and became shy where girls were concerned, and most of all appeared to
be shy with Lucy Drayton. He went to college and as he got his broad
shoulders and manly stride he got over his shyness with most girls, but
not with Lucy Drayton. With her, he appeared to have become yet more
reserved. She had inherited her mother's eyes and beauty, with the
fairness of a lily; a slim, willowy figure; a straight back and a small
head set on her shoulders in a way that showed both blood and pride.
Moreover, she had character enough, as her friends knew: those gray eyes
that smiled could grow haughty with disdain or flash with indignation,
and she had taught many an uppish young man to feel her keen irony.
“She gets only her intellect from the Dray-tons; her beauty and her
sweetness come from her mother,” said a lady of the neighborhood to
Judge Hampden, thinking to please him.
“She gets both her brains and beauty from her mother and only her name
from her father,” snapped the Judge, who had often seen her at church,
and never without recalling Lucy Fielding as he knew her.
That she and young Oliver Hampden fought goes without saying. But no
one knew why she was cruelly bitter to a young man who once spoke
slightingly of Oliver, or why Oliver, who rarely saw her except at
church, took up a quarrel of hers so furiously.
*****
The outbreak of the war, or rather the conditions preceding that
outbreak, finally fixed forever the gulf between the two families. Judge
Hampden was an ardent follower of Calhoun and “stumped” the State in
behalf of Secession, whereas Major Drayton, as the cloud that had been
gathering so long rolled nearer, emerged from his seclusion and became
one of the sternest opponents of a step which he declared was not merely
revolution, but actual rebellion. So earnest was he, that believing that
slavery was the ultimate bone of contention, he emancipated his slaves
on a system which he thought would secure their welfare. Nothing could
have more deeply stirred Judge Hampden's wrath. He declared that such a
measure at such a crisis was a blow at every Southern man. He denounced
Major Drayton as “worse than Garrison, Phillips, and Greeley all put
together.”
They at last met in debate at the Court House. Major Drayton exasperated
the Judge by his coolness, until the latter lost his temper and the
crowd laughed.
“I do not get as hot as you do,” said the Major, blandly. He looked as
cool as a cucumber, but his voice betrayed him.
“Oh, yes, you do,” snorted the Judge. “A mule gets as hot as a horse,
but he does not sweat.”
This saved him.
There came near being a duel. Everyone expected it. Only the
interposition of friends prevented their meeting on the field. Only this
and one other thing.
Though no one in the neighborhood knew it until long afterward--and then
only in a conjectural way by piecing together fragments of rumors that
floated about--young Oliver Hampden really prevented the duel. He told
his father that he loved Lucy Drayton. There was a fierce outbreak on
the Judge's part.
“Marry that girl!--the daughter of Wilmer Drayton! I will disinherit you
if you but so much as----”
“Stop!” The younger man faced him and held up his hand with an imperious
gesture. “Stop! Do not say a word against her or I may never forget it.”
The father paused with his sentence unfinished, for his son stood before
him suddenly revealed in a strength for which the Judge had never given
him credit, and he recognized in his level eyes, tense features, and the
sudden set of the square jaw, the Hampden firmness at its best or worst.
“I have nothing to say against her,” said the Judge, with a sudden rush
of recollection of Lucy Fielding. “I have no doubt she is in one way all
you think her; but she is Wilmer Drayton 's daughter. You will never win
her.”
“I will win her,” said the young man.
That night Judge Hampden thought deeply over the matter, and before
daylight he had despatched a note to Major Drayton making an apology for
the words he had used.
Both Judge Hampden and his son went into the army immediately on
the outbreak of hostilities. Major Drayton, who to the last opposed
Secession bitterly, did not volunteer until after the State had seceded;
but then he, also, went in, and later was desperately wounded.
A few nights before they went off to the war, Judge Hampden and his son
rode over together to Major Drayton's to offer the olive-branch of peace
in shape of young Oliver and all that he possessed.
Judge Hampden did not go all the way, for he had sworn never to put foot
again in Major Drayton's house so long as he lived, and, moreover, he
felt that his son would be the better ambassador alone. Accordingly, he
waited in the darkness at the front gate while his son presented himself
and laid at Lucy Drayton's feet what the Judge truly believed was more
than had ever been offered to any other woman. He, however, sent the
most conciliatory messages to Major Drayton.
“Tell him,” he said, “that I will take down my fence and he shall run
the line to suit himself.” He could not have gone further.
The time that passed appeared unending to the Judge waiting in the
darkness; but in truth it was not long, for the interview was brief. It
was with Major Drayton and not with his daughter.
Major Drayton declined, both on his daughter's part and on his own, the
honor which had been proposed.
At this moment the door opened and Lucy herself appeared. She was a
vision of loveliness. Her face was white, but her eyes were steady. If
she knew what had occurred, she gave no sign of it in words. She walked
straight to her father's side and took his hand.
“Lucy,” he said, “Mr. Hampden has done us the honor to ask your hand and
I have declined it.”
“Yes, papa.” Her eyelids fluttered and her bosom heaved, but she did not
move, and Lucy was too much a Drayton to unsay what her father had said,
or to undo what he had done.
Oliver Hampden's eyes did not leave her face. For him the Major had
disappeared, and he saw only the girl who stood before him with a face
as white as the dress she wore.
“Lucy, I love you. Will you ever care for me? I am going--going away
to-morrow, and I shall not see you any more; but I would like to know if
there is any hope.” The young man's voice was strangely calm.
The girl held out her hand to him.
“I will never marry anyone else.”
“I will wait for you all my life,” said the young man.
Bending low, he kissed her hand in the palm, and with a bow to her
father, strode from the room.
The Judge, waiting at the gate in the darkness, heard the far-off,
monotonous galloping of Oliver's horse on the hard plantation road. He
rode forward to meet him.
“Well!”
It was only a word.
“They declined.”
The father scarcely knew his son's voice, it was so wretched.
“What! Who declined? Did you see--”
“Both!”
Out in the darkness Judge Hampden broke forth into such a torrent of
rage that his son was afraid for his life and had to devote all his
attention to soothing him. He threatened to ride straight to Drayton's
house and horsewhip him on the spot. This, however, the young man
prevented, and the two rode home together in a silence which was
unbroken until they had dismounted at their own gate and given their
horses to the waiting servants. As they entered the house, Judge Hampden
spoke.
“I hope you are satisfied,” he said, sternly. “I make but one request
of you--that from this time forth, you will never mention the name of
Drayton to me again as long as you live.”
“I suppose I should hate her,” said the son, bitterly, “but I do not. I
love her and I believe she cares for me.”
His father turned in the door-way and faced him.
“Cares for you! Not so much as she cares for the smallest negro on that
place. If you ever marry her, I will disinherit you.”
“Disinherit me!” burst from the young man. “Do you think I care for this
place? What has it ever brought to us but unhappiness? I have seen your
life embittered by a feud with your nearest neighbor, and now it wrecks
my happiness and robs me of what I would give all the rest of the world
for.”
Judge Hampden looked at him curiously. He started to say, “Before I
would let her enter this house, I would burn it with my own hands”; but
as he met his son's steadfast gaze there was that in it which made him
pause. The Hampden look was in his eyes. The father knew that another
word might sever them forever.
*****
If ever a man tried to court death, young Oliver Hampden did. But Death,
that struck many a happier man, passed him by, and he secured instead
only a reputation for reckless courage and was promoted on the field.
His father rose to the command of a brigade, and Oliver himself became a
captain.
At last the bullet Oliver had sought found him; but it spared his life
and only incapacitated him for service.
There were no trained nurses during the war, and Lucy Drayton, like so
many girls, when the war grew fiercer, went into the hospitals, and by
devotion supplied their place.
Believing that life was ended for her, she had devoted herself wholly to
the cause, and self-repression had given to her face the gentleness and
consecration of a nun.
It was said that once as she bent over a wounded common soldier, he
returned to consciousness, and after gazing up at her a moment, asked
vaguely, “Who are you, Miss?”
“I am one of the sisters whom our Father has sent to nurse you and help
you to get well. But you must not talk.”
The wounded man closed his eyes and then opened them with a faint smile.
“All right; just one word. Will you please ask your pa if I may be his
son-in-law?”
Into the hospital was brought one day a soldier so broken and bandaged
that no one but Lucy Drayton might have recognized Oliver Hampden.
For a long time his life was despaired of; but he survived.
When consciousness returned to him, the first sound he heard was a
voice which had often haunted him in his dreams, but which he had never
expected to hear again.
“Who is that!” he asked, feebly.
“It is I, Oliver--it is Lucy.”
The wounded man moved slightly and the girl bending over him caught the
words, whispered brokenly to himself:
“I am dreaming.”
But he was not dreaming.
Lucy Drayton's devotion probably brought him back from death and saved
his life.
In the hell of that hospital one man at least found the balm for his
wounds. When he knew how broken he was he offered Lucy her release. Her
reply was in the words of the English girl to the wounded Napier, “If
there is enough of you left to hold your soul, I will marry you.”
As soon as he was sufficiently convalescent, they were married.
Lucy insisted that General Hampden should be informed, but the young
man knew his father's bitterness, and refused. He relied on securing
his consent later, and Lucy, fearing for her patient's life, and having
secured her own father's consent, yielded.
It was a mistake.
Oliver Hampden misjudged the depth of his father's feeling, and General
Hampden was mortally offended by his having married without informing
him.
Oliver adored his father and he sent him a present in token of his
desire for forgiveness; but the General had been struck deeply. The
present was returned. He wrote: “I want obedience; not sacrifice.”
Confident of his wife's ability to overcome any obstacle, the young
man bided his time. His wounds, however, and his breach with his father
affected his health so much that he went with his wife to the far South,
where Major Drayton, now a colonel, had a remnant of what had once been
a fine property. Here, for a time, amid the live-oaks and magnolias he
appeared to improve. But his father's obdurate refusal to forgive his
disobedience preyed on his health, and just after the war closed, he
died a few months before his son was born.
In his last days he dwelt much on his father. He made excuses for him,
over which his wife simply tightened her lips, while her gray eyes
burned with deep resentment.
“He was brought up that way. He cannot help it. He never had anyone to
gainsay him. Do not be hard on him. And if he ever sues for pardon, be
merciful to him for my sake.”
His end came too suddenly for his wife to notify his father in advance,
even if she would have done so; for he had been fading gradually and at
the last the flame had flared up a little.
Lucy Hampden was too upright a woman not to do what she believed her
duty, however contrary to her feelings it might be. So, although it was
a bitter thing to her, she wrote to inform General Hampden of his son's
death.
It happened by one of the malign chances of fortune that this letter
never reached its destination, General Hampden did not learn of Oliver's
death until some weeks later, when he heard of it by accident. It was a
terrible blow to him, for time was softening the asperity of his temper,
and he had just made up his mind to make friends with his son. He
attributed the failure to inform him of Oliver's illness and death to
the malignity of his wife.
Thus it happened that when her son was born, Lucy Hampden made no
announcement of his birth to the General, and he remained in ignorance
of it.