Chapter XXV: Father and Daughter

And so they waited in suspense for a few moments until the door opened and Mr. Leegh entered, as usual, with his head thrown back, his nose in the air, and his sister on his arm. His head was bowed upon her breast, and her face was pale and her eyes red and swollen.

John Legg arose and went to meet her with trembling nerves and outstretched arms. He was but a little over fifty years of age, yet for the last few hours he looked to be over seventy.

“My dear, dear Lyddy! My own poor child!” he said, drawing her to his breast and holding her there, while he put out his hand to his son and said:

“How do you do, Clay?”

“I am well, sir, thank you. How do you do yourself?” inquired the dutiful son in an offhand, nonchalant manner.

“As you see me, Clay. Not very well,” replied the grieved father, as he sank into a large cushioned chair that his wife had pushed up to him, and drew his daughter down upon his lap with her head against his shoulder, where she lay sobbing her soul forth in pride and anger—not in love or sorrow. She had not spoken one word as yet since she entered the room.

Clay Legg, as we must henceforth call him, because it is his only right name, threw himself into another armchair and said:

“I am told, sir, that you have something to communicate to us.”

“Yes, I have, Clay. Do not cry so. Lyddy, my dear. I will stand by you. Your father will stand by his daughter, and love her and comfort her, and shelter and protect her against all the world,” he said, turning away from his insolent son and bending over his wildly hysterical daughter.

“Well, sir,” said Mr. Clay Legg, “since you have something to communicate, hadn’t you better communicate it?”

“Yes,” replied his father, with a sigh.

“But first,” exclaimed Clay Legg, “here is a stranger present. Are we to discuss private family affairs before a stranger? And who is that person, anyway?” he demanded, jerking his thumb in the direction of Mrs. Legg, who had retired to a short distance and where she sat down.

“Oh, I ought to beg her pardon! For the moment I forgot. Julia, my love, will you step this way?”

Mrs. Legg came promptly at her husband’s request, and stood before the group.

“My dear Julia, this young man here is my son, Clay, whom you have never seen before. Clay, this is Mrs. Legg, my wife, your new mother. I hope you will be the best of friends!” pleaded the husband and father.

“Indeed, I hope so, too!” earnestly responded the new wife, as she held out her hand with hearty good will to her stepson.

He drew himself up stiffly and bowed, ignoring her offered hand.

John Legg noticed his manner and frowned with pain, not anger, and to cover the awkwardness, said:

“And this weeping girl on my bosom is my daughter, Lydia! She cannot speak to you yet, my dear. She has not even spoken to me, her father, whom she has not seen before for the last three years! But she will be better presently, and then I feel sure that you and she at least will be good friends.”

“Yes, indeed, John! I know we shall!” heartily responded Julia.

“Now sit down, my dear, and make yourself comfortable. You already know that I have a painful revelation to make to my son and daughter here; but as the misfortune to be spoken of was caused by no conscious complicity of theirs, it should not cause either of them too much grief, I think.”

“No, indeed! It was not their fault, so they should not mourn over it,” warmly assented Julia.

“See here, sir! Are you going to discuss private family matters in the presence of this person?” demanded Clay Legg.

“‘This person,’ sir, is my beloved wife. I have no secrets from her. She already knows as much as I do myself, and as much as I have to tell you,” replied John Legg, speaking for the first time with some severity.

“Tell me one thing, if you please, sir.”

“What is that?”

“Am I personally concerned in what you are about to communicate in the presence of a stranger?”

“No, not personally—not at all interested except through your sister.”

“Then that is her concern. If she choose——” And he turned on his heel and left his sentence unfinished.

“You had better let me go, John, dear, if the young people object to my presence during this interview,” said Julia gently.

“My daughter, do you object to my wife’s presence here while I make the revelation of which she knows the whole nature?” whispered John Legg to the agonized girl on his bosom.

“Oh! why should I object to anything? I know—before you tell me—that your dreadful news—concerns some crime of my wretched husband! If not a murder, that would hang him, then a forgery or some other felony that will send him to penal servitude, and will, in any case, be known all over England to-morrow. Let whom you like hear the horrid story,” replied the woman.

When she first began to speak she gasped and panted, but as she went on she gained more command over her voice.

Julia Legg was full of pity for this ungracious creature, and she came and knelt down beside her husband’s chair, and took his daughter’s hand in hers and kissed it, murmuring softly:

“Believe me, oh! believe me! I will do all in my power to lighten any trouble you may have, and to make you comfortable and contented, if not happy.”

Lamia—as we must continue to call her because that is the name by which the reader has known her from the first—Lamia drew her hand away from the kindly hands that clasped it, and Julia Legg, with a sigh, arose and resumed her seat.

“My own dear daughter, before I tell you anything more I must remind you again that in my heart and in my home you have a haven of peace and love, of rest and safety from all the storms of life. Do you not know and feel this, my daughter?”

“Oh, yes; you are my father, and that is understood,” she answered coldly, as if a parent’s boundless love, pity and forgiveness were such mere matters of course that they needed no recognition. “But I wish you would tell me at once, and be done with it. What has my miserable husband, Randolph Hay, done?” she demanded.

John Legg sighed deeply. He did not think “how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child,” because he had never seen the lines, but he sighed more than once as he answered:

“In the first place, my daughter, your miserable husband, as you call him, is not Randolph Hay, and has not a shadow of a right to that name or to the estate of Haymore.”

Lamia started up and looked her father in the face.

“Who and what is he, then?” she fiercely demanded.

“An adventurer with many aliases; a fraudulent claimant of the Haymore estates, who has sustained his false position by robbery, forgery and perjury, but who has been recently detected, and who is about to be exposed and punished.”

“I am not surprised! I am not surprised! I expected something like this! I did! I did! Tell me, does Mr. Will Walling know anything about it?”

“He knows all about it. His business in England is to bring that man to justice.”

Lamia sprang from her father’s arms, throwing him suddenly back by the violence of her motion, and began to walk wildly up and down the floor, exclaiming and gesticulating like a maniac, and thinking only of herself and of her own interests, and of no one and nothing else under the sun.

“To bring me to this! Oh, the villain! the villain! But I will have nothing more to do with him! I will never speak to him again! I will never look on his face again! Do you hear me, papa?” she cried, suddenly pausing, with flashing eyes, before her father’s chair. “Do you hear me, I say? I will never live with that felon again—never speak to him—never look at him!”

“My child, you are quite right in your resolution. It would be wrong and even criminal in you to do otherwise,” said John Legg, gently drawing his daughter into his arms again and adding sorrowfully, “for I have something more to tell you.”

“You could not tell me anything more shameful than you have already told me! Even if you should prove that that villain had been a murderer, as well as a robber, forger and perjurer, it would not be worse, since hanging is no more disgraceful than penal servitude. To be the wife of a felon—the wife of a convict! But I will not be! I will be separated by law! I will be divorced!”

This she repeated over so often and with so much excitement that at last her father said to her:

“My poor child, you will not need to appeal to the law.”

“What do you mean?” she demanded, impressed by the solemnity of his manner.

“You will not require a divorce,” he replied.

“That is just, in effect, what you said before. Why will I not require a divorce? The man is not dead, nor going to die! He will not commit suicide. No, indeed, trust him for that! He is too great a coward! And he is in no danger of being hanged. How, then, should you say that I will not require a divorce, since death is not likely to relieve me of my felon husband—ugh!” she exclaimed in strong disgust.

“My dear, the man has never been your husband,” he said slowly and distinctly.

“What?” she cried, aghast.

“The man has never been your husband!” he repeated firmly and solemnly.

“You are mad! We are all mad together, I think! What—under—heaven—do you mean?” she cried, staring at him with starting eyes.

“This man, under his true name of Kightly Montgomery, married Jennie Campbell, the daughter of the curate of Medge, in Hantz, more than two years before he ever saw your face. His wife is living now. She is in the drawing-room across the hall. My wife Julia here knows all about this first marriage.”

While John Legg spoke his daughter stared as if her eyes would have started from out their sockets. Then suddenly she sprang up and rushed across the room to the side where her brother sat with one leg crossed over the other, his head thrown back, and his hands clasped above it, his face wearing a cynical expression.

She paused before him, her eyes flaming.

“Cassius!” she said in a voice half choked with raging hatred and longing revenge. “Cassius, do you hear what papa has said? Do you hear that your sister has been deceived, betrayed by the basest of dastards and criminals! Cassius, kill that man! kill him! kill him! kill him!”

Clay Legg burst into a low, cynical laugh.

“Don’t let us be tragic, whatever we are, Lyddy. It is a pity you have been such a fool as to be so easily taken in. A greater pity that you should have brought discredit on your family. But you are not the first woman who has ever been fooled and laughed at. But as for me getting into a broil with the fellow on your account—no, thank you! It would be unbecoming to the cloth, and get me into trouble with the bishop. And as to killing him! Do you really think I propose to do murder and get myself hanged for your folly? No, thank you, I say again! You had better go and hide yourself down in the greengrocer’s shop at Medge along with papa and stepmamma, while I shall leave the country where my sister’s conduct has made it impossible for me to hold up my head and look honorable men in the face.”

While this brutal brother spoke his sister stood before him pallid, staring and biting her lip until the blood flowed.

“Shame on you, dastard, to speak to the unhappy girl in such a manner! Leave the room, sir!” said John Legg, rising and opening the library door.

“I did not want to come in here at first, and I am very glad to get out,” retorted Clay Legg, with an insulting laugh, as he walked off.

John Legg shut the door after him and then turned to his miserable daughter. She had thrown herself down on a sofa, where she lay with her face in her hands.

He kneeled beside her and laid his hand on her head, murmuring softly:

“You must content yourself with our love and our poor home. These are yours forever. You have tried other love and found it fail you. Paternal love never fails,” he continued, and while he spoke he did not cease to smooth and caress her head with his hand.

“And to think,” she moaned in a muffled voice, with her face downward and hidden with her hands; “to think it was his deserted wife that I shopped for in the last days before my marriage with him—that it was his deserted wife with her child—his child—that came over in the same steamer with him and myself on our bridal trip! Ah! now I know why he got off the ship at Queenstown! It was to get out of her sight and to avoid encountering her father who was to meet her at Liverpool. She was his lawful wife, and knew it, and she knew then that I was—what was I?—what am I? Oh! I shall go mad! mad! mad!” she shrieked, flinging off her fathers hand, springing from the sofa, clasping her head between her palms and walking wildly up and down the floor.

“My dear, dear child, don’t go on like this! Come and sit down. Try to compose yourself,” pleaded poor John Legg, walking after his daughter.

“Oh, hold your tongue! Let me alone! Don’t I know what you are thinking in your heart all this time? You are saying to yourself that this is just what you always expected! Just what I deserved! You are glad of it in your heart! Glad to see me punished! Glad to see me mortified!” she cried fiercely, angry with her father because she was angry with herself, her betrayer and all the world.

“My dear Lyddy! My darling girl! I know you are not accountable for what you say now. I blame you for nothing, child, not even for your words. I could not have the cruelty to do it. But try to compose yourself and believe that we love you and will serve you and comfort you! Lyddy, my daughter, we cannot offer you the wealth and grandeur and luxuries that you have been lately used to, but, my dear, a safe home and solid comforts, and peaceful days and family affection you shall not lack, my girl—you shall never lack,” pleaded her father; and while he spoke he followed her up and down with outstretched arms ready to infold her, up and down, pleading with her, turning when she turned until at length she whirled around upon him and hissed at him through her set teeth, her hard words dropping like leaden bullets from the mold:

“Will—you—mind—your—own—business? I am of age! I thought I was Mrs. Randolph Hay, of Haymore! Lady of the manor here! I entered this house as its lawful mistress! For what? To find myself deceived, betrayed, entrapped! Now what am I! Something that must not even be named to respectable ears like yours!”

“Oh, my dear child! To me you are my wronged and blameless daughter! Well, rave on! I cannot help it, though it cuts my heart like a sword! Maybe it relieves you to talk like this. But presently I hope you will take thought and come home with me to be comforted,” pleaded John Legg.

Lamia burst into a cruel, sarcastic laugh.

“The greengrocer’s house on Market Street, Medge, of course, would be a perfect paradise to me! I can imagine the back parlor full of the fragrance of onions, leeks and other garden stuff from the shop, and enlivened with the music of the bell every time a customer opened the door! Not any for me, please! I may go on the stage, or on the street—why should I care where I go, what I do, or how I end—after this—so that I enjoy the pride of life in my prime?” she demanded, looking at the plain, good man before her with a cruel, sarcastic sneer.

He held out his arm to her, with a prayer in every look and gesture. He even ventured to lay his hand on her in tender compassion, but she broke away from him and resumed her wild walk.

Then he sank into an armchair beside him—he could follow her no further—and dropped his head upon his hands.

His wife Julia came to his side.

She has longed to go to him while he was following and pleading with his daughter, and getting nothing from her but insult for love. She had longed to lead him away from the ungracious and unseemly strife with evil and to say to him: “Leave the thankless and reckless woman to herself to recover her senses, if she ever had any, and come with me and rest.” But—she was a stepmother only to the willful girl, and she must not interfere between father and daughter.

But now that he sat alone in the collapse of despair after fruitless effort, bowed down, down with sorrow and wounded affection, she came to him, put her hand on his shoulder, laid her cheek lightly on his gray head and murmured words of comfort.

“You have been very, very patient with her, dear, and you were so right! She has had a terrible blow to her pride, such as even the best of women could not bear with patience. How then should she?”

“Cruel words from one’s child, my dear! Cruel words!” said the suffering father, shaking his head without lifting it.

“She was crazed by grief and shame. She did not mean what she said. She did not even know what she said—did not know it rightly, I mean! When she comes to her senses, John, she will be more sorry and ashamed of her conduct to you than she is now of her downfall, and she will be grateful for your love and Christ-like patience with her. Her present mood is hysteria—frenzy! Give her time!”

“She threatened to go on the stage or on the street!” exclaimed John, uttering the last three words with a deep groan.

“She does rave worse than any other hysterical woman I ever heard, to be sure, for, as a rule, they only threaten to ‘go mad’ or to ‘kill’; but it is all raving! there’s nothing in it! You have been very patient and forbearing with your willful and provoking girl in this time of her suffering and excitement. Continue to be so, and you will have your reward in her penitence and affection. Believe it, dear.”

“‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’” quoted John Legg. “Come and draw a chair and sit by me, Julia, my dear. Your presence alone is very calming, even when you do not speak, though your words are always good and comforting and your voice sweet and pleasant.”

Julia Legg seated herself beside her husband and took his hand in hers.

Lamia, having exhausted herself by her fury, fell down again upon the sofa and buried her face in the cushions.

And now in the silence that ensued John Legg became conscious of a growing disturbance in the drawing-room.

This might have been going on some time unnoticed by the three persons in the library, who were absorbed in their own trouble; but now the disturbance on the opposite side of the hall was too evident to be ignored.

The sound of angry voices, hurrying steps and struggling forms reached their ears.

Lamia started up from her sofa and sat with her head bent forward, staring in the direction of the noise and listening intently, with a look of demoniacal satisfaction and expectancy on her face.

Julia cowered and clung for protection to the husband whom she herself had just been comforting.

He patted her head to reassure her, and then said:

“There, let me go, dear, and see what is the matter in there,” gently trying to release himself from her clasp.

“Oh, no, no!” cried Julia, clinging closer than before. “Pray, don’t leave us, John! Don’t go into that room! Something dreadful is going on there.”

At that moment a piercing shriek rang through the air, followed by a heavy fall that shook the house.

“I cannot stand this! Julia, I cannot stand it! I tell you I must run and prevent mischief if I can!” he urged earnestly, trying to free himself from her strong arms, but finding that he could not do so without using force and violence that must hurt her.

The confusion arose to uproar. A loud crash shivered on the floor, and a peal of fiendish laughter resounded through the building, and a woman’s agonized cry went up to heaven for help!

Lamia, sitting on the sofa, leaning forward, listening intently, now broke into a low, demoniacal chuckle.

“Julia!” exclaimed John Legg, breathing hard through excitement. “I hate to hurt you, but I must prevent murder.”

And he wrenched her arms from around his neck, threw her back in the armchair and rushed from the library to the drawing-room.