Mrs. Worthington

“ Sometimes I believe he perfectly hates me, and wishes I’d never been born,” and tears which arose from anger, rather than any wounded sisterly feeling, glittered in ’Lina’s black eyes.
“Hugh does not hate any one,” said Mrs. Worthington, “much less his sister, though you must admit that you try him terribly.”
“How, I’d like to know?” ’Lina asked, and her mother replied,
“He thinks you proud, and vain, and artificial, and you know he abhors deceit above all else. Why he’d cut off his right hand sooner than tell a lie.” ”

“ There was a hesitancy on the part of the mother, and then she said, “’Lina staid in Saratoga. She is very happy there. She will come if you grow worse. She sent her love.”
Poor Mrs. Worthington! She mentally asked forgiveness for this fabrication. ’Lina had sent no love, and the mother only said so because she must say something. Wistfully, eagerly, Hugh’s eyes sought hers for a moment, and then filled with tears which dropped upon the pillow. ”

“ May I see him, please?”
“First tell what he is to you and to this child,” ’Lina rejoined, her black eyes flashing with a gleam, before which the brown eyes for an instant quailed; then as if something of a like spirit were called to life in her bosom, Adah answered calmly,
22“Your brother might not like me to tell. I must see him first—see him alone.”
“One thing more,” and ’Lina held back her mother who was starting in quest of Hugh, “are you a wife?”
“Don’t, ’Lina,” Mrs. Worthington whispered, as she saw the look of agony pass over Adah’s face. “Don’t worry her so; deal kindly by the fallen.” ”

“ There was joy at the cottage then, old Uncle Sam stealing away to his accustomed place of prayer down by the Willow Spring, where he so oft had asked that Miss Adah might be spared, and where now he knelt to thank the God who had restored her. Joy at Spring Bank, too, when Mrs. Worthington wept tears almost as joyful as any she had shed when told that ’Lina would live. Joy, too, unobtrusive joy in Hugh’s heart, a joy which would not be clouded by thoughts of the heavy bills which he must meet ere long. ”

“ I wonder what does make him hate women so.”
“I don’t believe he does,” Mrs. Worthington replied. “His uncle, you know, was very unfortunate in his marriage, and had a way of judging all our sex by his wife. Living with him as long as Hugh did, it’s natural he should imbibe a few of his ideas.”
“A few,” ’Lina repeated, “better say all, for John Stanley and Hugh Worthington are as near alike as an old and young man well could be. What an old codger he was, and how like a savage he lived here. ”

“ Alice looked up inquiringly, while ’Lina began to tell her of Adah. She had not proceeded far, however, when with a cry of terror she sprang up as a large beetle, attracted by the light, fastened itself upon her hair.
Mrs. Worthington was the first to the rescue, while Lulu, who had listened with flashing eye when Hugh was the subject of remark, came haggardly, whispering slily to Alice,
“That’s a lie she done tell you about Mas’r Hugh. He ain’t rough nor bad, and we blacks would die for him any day.” ”

“ Still, I do not think it right to expose myself unnecessarily to danger, and as Mrs. Worthington is very timid, and very anxious to go North, where there is safety, I too have concluded that it is best to leave Spring Bank for a time. Aunt Eunice, who is afraid of nothing, will remain in charge of the house, while you, we hope, will have a care for the negroes until we return, or Hugh, if that time ever comes,” and Alice’s voice trembled as she thought how long it was since they had heard from Hugh, three months having elapsed since a word had come to them from him. ”

“ On the white walls of a handsome country seat just on the banks of the Connecticut, the light of the April sunset falls, and the soft April wind kisses the fair cheek and lifts the golden curls of the young mistress of Spring Bank—for so, in memory of the olden time, Hugh and Alice have named their new home. Arm in arm they walk up and down the terraced garden, talking softly of the way they have been led, and gratefully ascribing all praise to Him who rules and overrules, but doeth nought save good to those who love Him. ”

“ Don't look so black, Hugh, don't—oh, Miss Johnson, you must pacify him," and in terror poor Mrs. Worthington fled from the room, leaving Alice and Hugh alone.
"My mother told you of our difficulties! Has she no discretion, no sense?" and Hugh's face grew dark with the wrath he dared not manifest with Alice's eyes upon him.
"Mr. Worthington," she said, "you have thanked me for caring for you when you were sick. You have expressed a wish to return in some way what you were pleased to call a kindness. There is a way, a favor you can grant me, a favor we women prize so highly ”

“ We’ll have heaps of dresses. We’ll take Lu, for a waiting-maid. That will be sure to make a sensation at the North. ‘Mrs. Worthington, daughter, and colored servant, Spring Bank, Kentucky.’ I can almost see that on the clerk’s books. Then I can manage to let it be known that I’m an heiress, as I am. We needn’t tell that it’s only a thousand dollars, most of which I have on my back, and maybe I’ll come home Adaline somebody else. There are always splendid matches at Saratoga. We’ll go north the middle of July, just three weeks from now.”
’Lina had talked so fist that Mrs. ”

“ Do you suppose Hugh has any money?”
86“None for new dresses or lace flounces either,” Mrs. Worthington replied. “I fancy he begins to look old and worn with this perpetual call for money from us. We must economize.”
“Never mind, when I get Bob Harney I’ll pay off old scores,” ’Lina said, laughingly, as she arose from the table and went to look over her wardrobe, having first investigated the weather, and ascertained, from a consultation with Cæsar, that the roads would undoubtedly be passable by noon. ”

“ Hugh is better, I hear," Alice said, observing Mrs. Worthington's agitation, and then the whole came out.
"'Lina must have fifty dollars. The necessity was imperative, and they had not fifty to send unless Hugh sold his uncle's watch, but she did not know what it was worth—could Alice tell her?"
"Worth more than you will get," Alice said, and then, as delicately as possible she offered the money from her own purse, advancing so many reasons why they should take it, that poor Mrs. Worthington began to feel that in accepting it, she would do Alice a favor. ”

“ If they waited for me here until after eight, they would be hardly more than started at dinner. All I want to know is what car I ought to take.”
Mrs. Worthington’s eyelids flickered a response to her husband.
“Pray allow us to escort you there,” said Mr. Worthington. “It is really quite on our way.”
“Oh, you’re very kind,” said Mrs. Gibbons, following her leaders gratefully, after a moment or two of demur. She had naturally the feeling that when a man took the thing in hand it would be all right. ”

“ Miss ’Lina can’t read!” was Muggins’ reply, which Alice fully understood.
’Lina was no reader, while Hugh was, it might be, and she continued to speak of him. Did he read evenings to his mother, or did ’Lina play to them?
“More’n we wants, a heap!” and Muggins spoke scornfully. “We can’t bar them things she thumps out. Now we likes Mas’r Hugh’s the best—got good voice, sing Dixie, oh, splendid! Mas’r Hugh loves flowers, too. Tend all them in the garden.”
“Did he?” and Alice spoke with great animation, for she had supposed that ’Lina’s or at least Mrs. Worthington’s hands had been there. ”

“ Shall you let Alice come? Ten dollars a week, they’ll pay. Five hundred and twenty dollars a year. Whew! We are rich as Jews. It won’t cost half that sum to keep them. Our ship is really coming in.”
By this time Mrs. Worthington was able to talk of a matter which had apparently so delighted ’Lina. Her first remark, however, was not very pleasing to the young lady.
“As far as I am concerned I would willingly give Alice 119a home, but it’s not for me to say. Hugh alone can decide it. We must write to him.”
“You know he’ll refuse,” was ’Lina’s angry reply. “He hates young ladies. ”

“ New York and Saratoga are a 314great 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. ”

“ There's a woman dead, I fear. I can carry her, but the child, Ad must come for her."
"The what?" gasped Mrs. Worthington, who, terrified beyond measure at the mention of a-dead woman, was doubly so at hearing of a child. "A child," she repeated, "whose child?"
Hugh, made no reply save an order that the lounge should be brought near the fire and a pillow from his mother's bed. "From mine, then," he added, as he saw the anxious look in his mother's face, and guessed that she shrank from having her own snowy pillow come in contact with the wet, limp figure he was depositing upon the lounge. ”

“ The shock had been a terrible one to ’Lina. She did love Dr. Richards; and the losing him was enough of itself to drive her mad; but worse even than this, and far more humiliating to her pride, was the discovery of her parentage, the knowing that a convict was her father, a common servant her mother, and that no marriage tie had hallowed her birth.
“Oh, I can’t bear it!” she cried. “I can’t. I wish I might die! Will nobody kill me? Hugh, you will, I know!” ”

“ It showed a little now in the firelight, and Mrs. Worthington shuddered as she glanced at what brought so vividly before her the remembrance of other and wretched days. Adaline observed the shudder and hastened to change the conversation from herself to Hugh, saying by way of making some amends for her unkind remarks: "It really is kind in him to give me a home when I have no particular claim upon him, and I ought to respect him for that. ”

“ With a muttered invective against the “villain,” Hugh left the room to see that the carriage was ready, while his mother, following him into the hall, offered to go herself with Adah if he liked. Glad to be relieved, as he had business that afternoon in Versailles, and was anxious to set off as soon as possible, Hugh accepted at once, and half an hour later, the Spring Bank carriage, containing Mrs. Worthington, Adah and Willie, drove slowly from the door, ’Lina calling after her mother to send Cæsar back immediately, as she was going to Frankfort after dinner, and wanted the carriage herself. ”

“ She only knew that sobs and tears were mingled with it, that there was a rustling of paper, which Adah bade Hugh read, asking if it were true. This was all ’Lina could hear, and muttering to herself, “It does not sound much like man and wife,” she rather unwillingly quitted her position, and Hugh was really alone with Adah.
Never was Hugh in so awkward a position before, or so uncertain how to act. The sight of that sobbing, trembling, wretched creature, had perfectly unmanned him, making him almost as much a woman as herself. ”

“ It was terrible for a mother to feel that her home would be happier for the absence of a child, and that child an only daughter, but she did feel so, and it made her half willing that Dr. Richards should be deceived. But Hugh shrank from the dishonorable proceeding.
Mrs. Worthington always yielded to Hugh, and she did so now, mentally resolving, however, to say a few words to Adah, relative to her not divulging anything which could possibly harm 'Lina, such as telling how poor they were, or anything like that. ”

“ Hugh growled. “It cannot be much worse than it is now. Nobody cares for Hugh Worthington; and why should they, when his own mother and sister are against him, in actions if not in words?—one sighing when his name is mentioned, as if he really were the most provoking son that ever was born, and the other openly berating him as a monster, a clown, a savage, a scarecrow, and all that. I tell you, mother, there is but little to encourage me in the kind of life I’m leading. ”

“ And Hugh did read on, feeling as if he, too were guilty, thus to know what Anna Richards had intended only for her mother’s eye.
“‘From some words you have dropped, I fancy that Miss Worthington does not suit you in all respects, and you wish me to see her. Dear mother, John marries for himself, not for us, and though I could wish my new sister to be every way congenial, I shall try to like her, even if there are certain little coarse points about her. These may result from education rather than bad blood, and if so, they can easily be rubbed off. ”

“ Poor Adah! How white and cold she grew, listening to that air, and gazing upon the face she had loved so well. It was changed since the night when, with his kiss warm on her lips, he left her forever; changed, and for the worse. There was a harder, a more reckless, determined expression there, a look which better than words could have done, told that self alone was the god he worshipped. Adah doubted if he could have won her love with that look upon his face, and ’Lina Worthington was not envied the honor in store for her. ”