 | XXXVIII.
THE MORNING AFTER. Lucy Arlyn |  |
38. XXXVIII.
THE MORNING AFTER.
WHEN the tempest had spent its force, and the
clouds were broken, and the few visible stars
seemed wildly sailing and hurrying; when the
young day-child dimpled with its rosy fingers the bosom of
the black nurse-mother Night; when the cocks crew in the
sheds, and the sparrow trilled his ecstatic catches under the
dripping leaves, — then the widow Brandle was awakened from
the sleep of the righteous by a noisy knocking.
“Who's there?” putting her head out of the window, and
showing her chaste night-cap to the universe.
It was one in whose breast there had also been a storm,
which had now spent its fury, leaving the thoughts of his
head drifting and hurrying like the clouds and stars.
“Widder Brandle! I knowed your house, and it seemed
to have a sort of friendly feeling towards me,” — the friendless,
broken man!
“Why, bless me!” — and the night-cap went in at the window,
and peered out presently at the door; and she shook
light with such cordial musical speech as made the birds stop
singing in their wet covers to listen.
“Well, well!” said the rough Benjamin: “this 'ere's a
heartier welcome than I got from my own sister. I begin to
feel right again. I've had a trouble here!” — pressing his
brow. “Every thing's been rolling and rolling! — Thank
ye, widder!”
He tottered into the chair she gave him; and, bending forward
to look at him by the yellow candlelight, she felt her
heart bleed with sympathy for the unspoken grief that had
shattered him.
“It's Mr. Arlyn, my son,” — to Archy, who came rubbing
his eyes open: “don't you know him?” — smilingly,
yet with a glistening tear and twitching lip.
“Archy, my boy, it's old uncle Ben, as you used to call
me. Your mother and me's old friends, and I ventered to
call on her in a time of trouble; for I know, if ever there was
a Christian woman, she's one.” And he wrung the hand of
the genius. “There, widder, don't take any steps for me.
I only jest want to set a spell till I get myself again; then
I'll go.”
“I'm going to fix a room for ye, and have ye go right to
bed,” said the widow. “You must git off them wet clo'es
the fust thing. Been out all night, haven't ye?”
“I scurce know where I've been; but I've had a hard
night, that's sartain! The town don't seem what it did.
How long has Squire Pelt been dead?”
“Squire Pelt? — he ain't dead!” exclaimed Archy.
“Are you sure?” said Arlyn with an earnest, troubled
look.
“I'm sure I see him driving round yesterday,” replied
Archy.
“Well, well!” — the wayfarer pressed his brow, — “I
mustn't let my mind run that way: it sets me afloat again.”
The room was soon ready; and the widow and her son led
the great, helpless, submissive man into it. Archy was left
to perform the functions of valet; while his mother hastened
to boil the tea-kettle, and prepare some wholesome, warming
drink for the chilled traveller.
With much exercise of his inventive faculties, and a considerable
outlay of muscle, the genius succeeded in getting
the guest into a marvellously tight-fitting shirt and into bed.
Then presently came the widow with a steaming bowl of
tea.
“It's yarb-tea,” said she with her simple, sympathizing
smile. “It's the best thing to keep a body from ketchin'
cold. Raise his shoulders a little, Archy, so's't he can
drink.”
“Thank ye, Salome; thank ye, sister;” and, having drunk,
he lay down again. “See here, Abner: tell Squire Pelt”
— he rolled his eyes a moment, then closed them with a
weary groan.
“He thinks he's to Mis' Pinworth's: he's jest a little out
of his head,” whispered the widow, holding the bowl, and regarding
the patient pityingly.
“Think he knows about Lucy?”
“That's it, depend upon't; and it's enough, my son, to
craze any man. Oh, little do gals know the heart-breaks they
bring on others as well as themselves when they go wrong!
Poor Mr. Arlyn! I wonder if his feet don't want a jug o'
hot water. I declare,” — putting her hand under the sheet,
— “they're jest as cold and clammy!”
A jug was soon got; and she was placing it at his feet,
when suddenly he started up.
“Lucy! — where is she? I must 'a' been dreaming.
Widder Brandle, ain't it? Thank ye, thank ye, widder!” —
and the haggard face tried to smile gratefully. “Don't take
any steps for me. Only, if you see Lucy” —
“What shall I say to her?” asked Mrs. Brandle, laying
him gently back upon the pillow.
“I forgive her, I forgive her, I forgive her!” — and his
voice broke into sobs.
“Does she know you have come?”
“Maybe not. Break it to her easy. I don't feel to blame
her. She had no mother to look after her. 'Twas my fault
to leave her as I did, — my poor child, my poor ruined
child!”
He covered his face; and presently all was still, and the
widow stood wiping her tears.
“Maybe he'll sleep now,” she said, listening to his slow,
difficult breathing; “for he's all wore out. And, Archy, I've
been thinking I'd better go and see Lucy.”
“O ma, I wish you would! I've wanted ye to so many
times!”
“Wal, the right time hadn't come. I'll jest drink a cup
o' tea, and go right over this morning, the fust thing.”
It is now full day; and the mountains are glorious with
their clear cerulean peaks, and floating wreaths of mist illumined
by the sun. A delicious, breezy morning, wonderful
to behold after such a night! Peace and beauty kiss each
other on the shining hillsides and by the fresh showery
groves. But in the village ferments an extraordinary excitement.
The coroner is here, and the sheriff comes riding fast,
and magistrates and lawyers are astir, — all but ONE. He
sleeps: the rest are awake, or think they are. He lies
with dollars on his eyes, which see not the glory and the
peace of God this day. And the rest? — alas! how many,
here and elsewhere, stand or move, with dollars on their
eyes, which never see the glory and the peace of God!
“If you go 'cross lots,” said Archy, “look out for Jehiel's
plaguy corset!” — meaning the pet-lamb, of molasses memory.
Jehiel had not come home; and Lucy had been up all
night waiting for the doctor, who was waiting for the morning
in order to make his postponed visit; when Mrs. Brandle
entered the room where the mother was with her sick babe.
“I was afraid I might disturb ye if I knocked,” she whispered;
“and Mis' Hedge told me to walk right in.”
“O Mrs. Brandle!” was all Lucy could say.
“Oh, the poor, dear thing!” exclaimed the widow, blinded
by her tears.
She had felt some natural awkwardness on meeting one
who had shocked the moral sense of society and slighted her
own son. But at sight of that changed face, which she had
not seen since the fatal summer evening, nearly a year ago,
when it went so sweetly and cruelly smiling away from her
door along with Archy and the flower-boxes; and at sight
of the stricken little innocent, with its brief, strange history,
and its young soul warm from the bosom of God, — the true
woman's sympathy upwelled from the clear spring of the widow's
heart, sweeping away all prejudice and all traces of resentment;
and she remembered not the errors or the sins, but
only the sufferings and the needs, of her sorrowing sister-woman.
“Why, dear!” said she, wiping her own eyes, “don't
cry!”
“It is so good of you to come!” said Lucy. For she
felt that this was no self-righteous matron, looking coldly
down upon her distress, but a neighbor indeed, — simple,
poor, uncultured, yet bringing the golden key that unlocks
hearts and the fountains of long-pent tears.
Conscience-stricken to think she had kept so long away,
and reading in the pining baby's face a mute piteous reproach
of the world's condemnation, Mrs. Brandle murmured humbly,
“I'd have come before; and massy knows, if I'd
chance. What a sweet little baby! Archy said it was.
How long has't been sick?”
“Not long: I didn't think she was very sick till last
night. She don't cry any more now. Oh, if I could only
hear her cry as she used to!”
“Well, we won't worry about it right away, I guess,”
said the widow soothingly; but her heart was troubled for
the child. “The angels love little babies, and they'll take
care on't. Let me have it a little while, and see if I can't
give it some life. I've a notion babies need something besides
the breast: they want a good strong, healthy natur' to
draw from. You're too wore out yourself to do much for it
now.”
“I know,” said Lucy, “my suffering has weakened her.
She has nursed away my cares, and I have given her sorrow
with my milk.”
“It was a relief to you, but 'twasn't so well for the baby,”
softly answered the widow. “But, dear, I want you to think
of something else now; for I've news for ye.”
Lucy, whose spirit was full of whispering prophecies of ill,
turned paler than she was, with a painful apprehension.
“Yes, dear: there's a visitor to my house that'll be glad
to see you.” And Mrs. Brandle smiled to re-assure her.
“Oh! my father?”
“Yes, dear; and he sent me to you with a kind word.”
But Lucy was too weak. The news, softly as it had been
swam and faded around her; but she did not swoon. Dizzy
and trembling she sat, while the widow told her story.
“I'll go — I'll go to him at once!” — recovering from
her bewilderment. “God keep me strong, God keep me
strong!” she prayed.
Mrs. Brandle was to stay and take care of the baby until
her return; and she was hurriedly putting on her things to
go, when Archy arrived.
“Why, my son! — why didn't ye stop with him?”
“He ain't there,” said Archy with a doleful countenance.
“'Most as soon as you was out o' sight, he started up; and,
spite of every thing, he would go. He wore my shirt;
though, 'twas so small, he was splitting it all to pieces. He
put on his wet clo'es agin, which you left by the fire, — and
they hadn't begun to git dry: said he'd left some money
somewheres, that he must look after.”
“And you let him go!” exclaimed the dissatisfied widow.
“Why, I couldn't help it, ma! I found out he wanted
to go to Mis' Pinworth's: so I helped him, seein' I couldn't
hender him, and left him to the door. Then I come to tell
ye; though they're havin' an awful time in the village!”
added Archy, lowering his voice.
Lucy stood as if transfixed with her distress.
“Don't feel too bad, dear; but I suppose you won't feel
like going to see him to your aunt Pinworth's, will ye?”
Lucy roused herself: yes, she would go; and kissing the
“Pray for me!” she hastened forth with her double grief,
with her divided anxious love, into the mockery of the bright
musical morning.
Oh! how could the earth be so beautiful? — the birds delirious
with the joy of song; the sky deep and clear as a poet's
mind, with a few golden voluptuous clouds afloat in it, like
large dreamy thoughts. How could the river pour with so
glad a rush, and her heart be so wretched and fearful?
She crossed the river, and stood at her aunt's door. For
the first time since she left it in the dew and beauty of that
other morning so long ago, she stood on the old familiar steps
with a sinking and a heart-sickness which the blithe, bright,
careless girl of those earlier days never knew. And oh! to
think that she had left behind her a baby that seemed to have
been dreamed into existence since! and that she was come
now, so full of dread and shrinking, to meet her father!
Trembling and agasp in the whirlwind of memories and
fears that beset her, she lifted the old brass knocker. It
dropped with a hollow forbidding clank. No response from
within; and she waited. And the same birds she knew and
loved of old flew and sang around her, and the sunshine
slanted just as it used to along the paint-worn piazza floor,
and the garden smelt as sweet. But there was a ghastliness
about it all that was more intolerable than pain; and she
knocked again. Presently the door was opened about three
inches, and Mrs. Pinworth's face peeped out.
Lucy asked for her father.
“You! — to speak of your father! You have no father.
You don't deserve to have one, nor friends either. My
brother Benjamin is here, and you have nearly killed
him!”
“Let me come in! let me see him!” pleaded Lucy.
“Not in my house! — never in a respectable house like
mine! You have brought disgrace enough on us all! Go
away! Don't come here again!”
So this woman without sin stoned Lucy.
“You refuse me? you won't let me see my father?” said
the outcast, amazed into something like calmness. “You
cannot, aunt Pinworth, be so unjust! Aunt Pinworth, as
you hope for mercy, show me a little now. Let me see my
father.”
But, all the time Lucy was saying this, the ascetic female
was saying to herself, “If she sees him, she'll work on his
weak nature, and get the money, which will do us a great
deal more good than it will her.” For already her heart was
set on inheriting her brother's substance, and making his
daughter a perpetual outcast. Not consciously to herself,
perhaps; for the devil that tempts is subtle, and doubtless
he flattered the widow that she was acting from a high moral
motive.
So the door was clashed together in Lucy's face, and fastened.
Statue-still she stood, utterly unable to realize the harsh
be opened to her; till she looked, and saw Sophy's face at a
window, glancing out upon her with an expression cold and
relentless as ice. Then she felt the doom irrevocable; and
she turned away.
Back across the bridge she went, over the stream, —
the singing, dancing stream, — and through the village
streets; walking in a sort of trance; seeing all things as
through a glassy film. The house-fronts, gardens, and even
faces that stared upon her, appeared like objects she had
known in dreams. The crowd around the tavern, as she
passed, was but a crowd of gibbering phantoms, with neither
sense nor soul in common with her; and the phantom that
started out before her — a red-headed phantom, fawning and
rubbing its hands — floated in an atmosphere of unreality
like the rest.
“Perty exciting time, Miss Arlyn: I suppose you wouldn't
like to go in and see the corpse, would ye?”
The questioning look and words came to her vague and
strange through the glassiness of things. What corpse?
“Haven't you heard — how Squire Pelt was murdered
last night, — robbed of a heap of gold?”
The stroke of the announcement rent the film a little; and
startling light, swift, electric memory, streamed in upon Lucy,
shocking her back into consciousness.
“Murdered? — gold?” — she repeated with white lips.
Just then, young Biddikin swaggered to the spot.
“Such a row over a dead man! Lots of cheap talk.
Hear the robins over in the orchard there! They make
me laugh! `Kill him, cure him, give him — physic!'
They say it jest as plain! They're inclined to make a joke
of Elphaz.” And Mad spat cynical tobacco-juice.
“Seems to me you come to town early this morning, Biddikin,”
said Abner cringingly, fingering his memorandum-book.
“Whose business is't?” Mad retorted, opening his jack-knife.
“I wanted to see the sport. We don't have a murder
every day. Hear them robins! `Give him — physic!'
Can't help laughing!” and he picked up a stick to whittle.
He whittled; while Abner turned his back, and slyly made
a note of something. Lucy in the mean time stood waiting
for she knew not what, spell-bound by the new terror which
had come over her.
“They found a pistol up in the road there this morning,
when they went to look,” said Abner, chewing his pencil.
“They say it's one of Colonel Bannington's pistols,” — with
a cunning side-glance at Lucy.
“See here!” cried Mad in a bullying way: “I know
about that pistol. I was coming down the road when they
found it.”
“Well, what do you know?” Abner softly and persuasively
inquired, with his note-book ready.
“Any fool might know!” said Madison. “Ain't it plain
as day? Pelt was going to sell Bannington's farm for him,
to be carrying so much money through the woods in the
night, ye know.”
“The pistol had been fired off,” observed Abner over his
shoulder, after scratching a few hasty words.
“Wouldn't Pelt be apt to fire?” returned Mad. “Of
course he would, and drop his pistol after he got shot himself.
You don't suppose the man that shot him would drop
his pistol right there, do ye? Though he might, — these
Dutchmen are such cussed fools.”
“Oh! then you think the Dutchmen follered him up?”
“I didn't say I did. But who else knew he had the
money?”
“Well, some knew,” simpered Abner. “And it remains
to be seen whether the Banningtons lent the squire a pistol.”
“If they didn't, then he took it, most likely,” muttered
Mad. “He'd as soon steal a thing as borrow it, Pelt would.
— Darn it!” and he flirted blood from his thumb, which he
had whittled instead of the stick.
“They've gone over to the colonel's to see if he or Guy
knows any thing about it,” Abner mildly suggested, with his
back turned.
“See here! — whose words ye writing down now?” bullied
Biddikin. “I know ye of old, red-top! You're in your
element if you can be writing down something to swear to.
Well, you're welcome to any thing I say. — Wonder when
the fun.”
“Come! — don't flirt your blood on me, if you please!”
said Abner, with a cowardly hatred and disgust in his servile
polite face.
“Kill him, cure him, give him — physic!” — Mad recklessly
mocked the robins. “Say, red-top: do you carry to-backer?”
Why did Lucy linger? What was this horror that benumbed
her; that made her for the moment forget both her
father and her babe, and all her wrongs and fears? The
murdered man; the bag of gold; Guy's nocturnal visit and
wild words; the pistol found, — in this vortex every thing
else was lost.
“There comes Guy, along with Aaron, now!” said Abner.
Already she had descried him coming. He rode up to the
tavern-steps, and alighted amid the crowd. His countenance
was pale and stony cold; inscrutable as a mask. Erect and
composed he walked, stared at by the vulgar; and disappeared
in the tavern. Then Lucy broke the spell that held her;
left Abner writing, and Mad bloodying his stick; reached home
she scarce knew how; flew to the bureau-drawer where lay
the guilty gold; saw that it was undisturbed; and then sank
down swooning beside her babe, at the wondering widow's
feet.
| XXXVIII.
THE MORNING AFTER. Lucy Arlyn | |