University of Virginia Library

50. L.
FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

WHEN next Lucy opened her eyes, she was lying
on a lounge in an office-room. Two or three
women were attending her, and Mrs. Pinworth
was sitting up stiff in a chair at her side.

That excellent female had nearly undergone petrifaction:
she was almost a Niobe; having, at one fell swoop of the
avenging deities, lost a whole family of very dear expectations.

“Father! — where is he?” said Lucy, who had surely —
or was it only a dream? — felt herself in his arms a minute
since.

At that the marble woman began to bend a little.

“Are you better, my dear?” — and the stony hands
smoothed Lucy's forehead, and the striated countenance
wrinkled itself into a smile. “Why did you ever deceive
your dear auntie, my child? I have always loved you as my
own daughter: don't you know I have?”

“I want my father!” exclaimed Lucy, trying to rise.
“Who took me away from him?”

“Your poor father is very much grieved and offended;
but I shall do all I can to have him reconciled to my dear
niece;” and the limestone lips actually kissed Lucy! “You
know how he hates the Banningtons; but let us pray that
he may be led to see the duty of forgiveness. Forgiveness
is the great Christian virtue, my dear.” Pious Pinworth
was herself again.

At that moment, Abner came rushing in, his capillary
torch uncovered and wildly flaming.

“Something's the matter with Sophy!” he gasped in the
widow's ear.

“Sophy! Where is she?”

“In the jailer's house. Come quick!”

It was a distracting moment to the widow. She had hastened
to take Lucy away from her father; and it was her
policy to keep them separated, at least until (if a reconciliation
was inevitable) she could assume the rôle of a mediatress
between them. But Abner's alarm, and perhaps her own
suspicions of Sophy's danger, dashed her purpose, and she
fled in confusion.

Then Lucy, with tremulous faintness and longing, waited
for her father. But he kept aloof. The parental impulse,
with which he received her in his arms and bore her from the
court-room, had been followed by a bitter revulsion. Mrs.
Pinworth's spirit still worked within him. Incessantly, during
his sickness and convalescence, when he was weak and
susceptible, she had been poisoning his mind against Lucy;

and now all that he had been induced to believe of her undutifulness
and deceit seemed confirmed. That she was not
Guy's victim merely, but his wife by a private marriage, did
not console him. She was guilty, not, as he had supposed,
of a weakness which might be pardoned, but of a perversity of
will which was unpardonable. She had married the son
of his worst, his most malicious enemy, — a deliberate act.
Then, for the meanest of all considerations, that of property,—
the Bannington property even, — she had lived for a year
a life of deception and disgrace.

So the old man, full of prejudice and passion, judging from
appearances, but ignorant as a block of Lucy's inner life, condemned
her, and tortured himself, in his impetuous, violent
way. He was walking to and fro by the court-house, grinding
the gravel under his agitated feet, when he saw Abner
come out of the jailer's house, after conducting his future
mother-in-law into it. Immediately his great heart warmed
towards Abner. He must have somebody to love and to
benefit; and it was a relief to turn from his harsh thoughts
of Lucy to kind thoughts of his worthier relatives.

“Come here, Abner. I've been thinking what I shall do
with that new house Pelt built with my money. How would
you like that house when you're married?”

Abner writhed all over with an inane, bilious grin. He
gasped, but did not speak.

“Why, Abner! are you sick?”

“Yes, I am some sick!”

“What's the matter?” asked his sympathizing prospective
uncle.

“I rather guess the excitement has been too much for
Sophy! The truth is, — may as well say it, — Mrs. Pinworth's
a gran'mother by this time, or will be shortly.”

“Abner! — you don't mean — Sophy!” —

“You can imagine my feelings!” said Abner. “I never
suspected any thing; and we was to be married next week, you
know! And we might have been, if it hadn't been for to-day.
Miss Arlyn, — I mean Mrs. Bannington, beg her pardon, —
her coming out so handsomely in court seemed to hurry up
the business. I must say,” added redhead, “it seems to me
to be a judgment on mother and daughter for treating Mrs.
Bannington so heartlessly.”

“Abner!” frowned the old man, “I thought better of you
than that!”

“Me!” Abner almost wriggled out of his sleeves, rubbing
his freckled hands. “You don't suppose I — good Heavens!
I assure you I was strictly honorable. I was even too innocent.
I have been duped in the most shameful way. And
allow me to say, you have been duped too, Mr. Arlyn. They
never meant you should make up with your excellent daughter;
which I, being in the interest of the family, knew all
about it. They came to the trial to-day, so as to keep you
and Miss Lucy — beg her pardon, Mrs. Bannington — from
seeing each other. There's where the deceit has been! You
was expected to settle a fortune on Sophy, when she got married;

and after that I suppose they thought I could afford to
play father to Mad Biddikin's baby!”

Stunned and staring, the old man stood and twisted his
gray locks in his shaking fingers. Perhaps he was feeling to
assure himself that the top of his head was safe, after the perfect
flood of light that had been all at once poured in upon
his great, stupid, startled brain.

While he stood thus, a cry reached his ears. He turned,
and saw fluttering towards him Lucy, with appealing countenance
and outreaching hands. In an instant, Mrs. Pinworth,
with all her evil counsel, was swept into oblivion.

“Father! dear father! — love me! forgive me!”

“My child! my child!” sobbed the old man.

And Lucy was folded to his breast. After all her trials,
she reposed on that tumultuous, fond heart.

Abner wriggled away.

Mr. Arlyn took Lucy to a bench under a tree; and there
they sat breathing the blessed air of reconciliation, when he
told her what had happened to her cousin.

“Poor Sophy! how I pity her!” exclaimed Lucy, who
had learned by fiery experience how to compassionate the
woman whom the world condemns.

They had many things to say to each other which could
not be said then and there; and they arose to go. At the
same time, Aaron and Jehiel carried a burden between them
down the court-house steps. Lucy recoiled, and clung to her
father's arm. His honest, earnest face was working with

emotion as he looked on the wreck of him who had once been
his friend. All melted and humbled, in that hour of love
and forgiveness he could hold his resentment no longer. He
advanced, leading Lucy, and stood face to face with his foe.

“George Bannington, I offer you my hand!”

The colonel looked up like a wounded snake from its coil,
and answered nothing.

“I offer you my hand, and I beg your pardon. I remember
that we were friends once, and that I have said and done
many things in passion that I shouldn't; and I humbly entreat
your pardon.”

The invalid's eyes sparkled as he glanced from father to
daughter; but neither the tears and beauty of the one, nor
the manly frankness and contrition of the other, appeared to
touch him.

“Well, be it so!” And the old man withdrew the proffered
hand, and laid it on his heart. “But it makes me
ache here, George Bannington, to think that ever you and I
should meet as we meet now. Life wasn't given us to be
wasted in such misunderstandings and hatreds. I don't speak
for the sake of property: I have enough for my daughter
and me. All we want of you is your good will. We don't
know how this trial will turn out: she may soon be a widow;
you may soon be a childless old man.”

The invalid's jaw worked silently, with some inward convulsion;
but still he refused the thrice-proffered hand.

“I didn't suppose any father could sit at his son's trial, as

you have to-day,” said the old man solemnly, “and hear
and see what you have heard and seen, without having his
pride broke down. But I leave you to God and your own
conscience. We have been in court together before, — too
often. When we meet again, it may be at a different bar,
and sooner than we think. George Bannington, good-by!”

The colonel, still speechless, gnawing his tongue, made an
impatient movement; and Aaron wheeled him away.

“Jehiel,” then said Mr. Arlyn, “you've done my daughter
kindnesses we can never pay you for. But I want you
to do one more. I've got a horse to the tavern: I wish you'd
have him got out, and bring him here. I can't leave my
child,” he added with deep tenderness; “and she ain't well
able to walk.”

He took Lucy back to the bench, where they waited. It
was now late in the afternoon. It was not necessary that
they should remain longer in the village. They could not
help Mrs. Pinworth in her trouble; and the trial was expected
to continue the next day. Both longed to get away from the
fever and excitement, of which the very atmosphere of the
place seemed filled; and Lucy knew where she wished to be
with her father then, — a quiet spot, where they could have
solitude, communion, and rest.

Jehiel came with the horse. Arlyn gave him some money
to give to Mrs. Pinworth; then helped Lucy into the wagon,
and rode away with her into the broad, beautiful, cool green
valley, by the river's banks.

They went where Lucy wished to go, and stopped at a
familiar gate, which divides the busy world of the living
from the tranquil place of the dead.

They entered with still feet. The air was full of freshness
and fragrance, which the earth breathed forth after the storm.
The robins were singing their evening song. The sunlight
gilded the long grass. There were lambs feeding peacefully
among the graves.

To a little hillock, under a mountain ash, they walked in
silence. It was the first time the father of Lucy had visited
the spot since his return. There was his wife's grave, over
which the tears of past years had been shed; and he needed
not to be told that the little mound by its side covered the
ashes of the infant Agnes.

For a long time, without speaking, Lucy wept; not tears
of the old, insupportable agony, but of relief and peace. Then
she sat down, leaning upon her father's breast; and they
talked of the days of their separation.

Soon the sexton, who had been digging in a remote corner
of the grave-yard, passed that way.

“Another grave? Who now?” asked Mr. Arlyn.

“The last man ever I expected to make a grave for!”
said the sexton, leaning on his spade. “'Twas generally
supposed he would dry up and blow away. His brother from
over the mountains came for him, to have him sent to an
asylum; for he was crazy as a March hare. After hunting
for him two days, they found him this morning in the woods.

He was lying across a bank, close by a hole that looked as
if it had been freshly dug. There was a shovel by his side;
and on his neck was a large pasteboard label, tied on with a
string. The label had had printed on it with a pen the words,
`Not Guilty;' but afterwards the Not had been scratched
out. That, taken together with another circumstance, looks
terrible mysterious. In the bottom of the hole, only half
covered, was some human remains, — bones and so forth.
Some of his neighbors thought, by his wearing that placard,
that he was some way mixed up with the Pelt murder: but
now it seems as though it had reference to these remains,
which are supposed to belong to a boy that used to live with
him; and it looks as if his conscience had troubled him about
'em, till he finally got crazy. It may be so,” added the
grave-digger: “all I know is, guilty, or not guilty, this is
the last of Doctor Biddikin.”

So saying, he shouldered his spade, and walked away.

“Another of the wretched is at rest, thank God!” said
the old man. “What are you thinking, my daughter?”
for her countenance was troubled.

“Of that boy's grave in the woods! It was true, then!
And I have been to blame!”

“What do you mean?” asked the old man.

Then she told him how Guy and Christina had discovered
Martin's grave, and learned the history of it; and how she,
when the story was told her, had scoffed at it, believing it a
trick, invented to deceive Guy.

“Oh, if I had not been jealous, if I had not been prejudiced!”
she exclaimed. “If I had been willing to accept
what was true, I might have saved him from what was false.
But I lost my influence with him by my unreasonableness;
and so I lost him! And if he is convicted, if he dies!” —
She wrung her hands, and bent her head in anguish down over
her baby's grave.

“My child! — Lucy!” said her father, gently trying to
lift her; “come!”

“I won't ask you to stay with me; but let me stay!” she
pleaded. “Often I have longed to lie here all night, and
be wet with the same dews that wet my baby's grave. And
now, if I could only wait here till the trial is over, and I know
his fate! But it is foolish. Yes, father: I will go.”

She arose, supported by his arm. Then, when they had
taken leave of the spot, and were turning to go, they looked,
and lo! a man stood before them, whose sudden apparition
there astonished and thrilled Lucy, as if an angel of heaven
had visibly descended and stood among the graves.