He put his arms about her and hugged her, as a child might have hugged one of his own dolls.
‘Bertha couldn’t stay at home this morning,’ said Caleb. ‘She was afraid, I know, to hear the bells ring, and couldn’t trust herself to be so near them on their wedding–day. So we started in good time, and came here. I have been thinking of what I have done,’ said Caleb, after a moment’s pause; ‘I have been blaming myself till I hardly knew what to do or where to turn, for the distress of mind I have caused her; and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’d better, if you’ll stay with me, mum, the while, tell her the truth. You’ll stay with me the while?’ he inquired, trembling from head to foot. ‘I don’t know what effect it may have upon her; I don’t know what she’ll think of me; I don’t know that she’ll ever care for her poor father afterwards. But it’s best for her that she should be undeceived, and I must bear the consequences as I deserve!’
‘ Mary,’ said Bertha, ‘where is your hand! Ah! Here it is here it is!’ pressing it to her lips, with a smile, and drawing it through her arm. ‘I heard them speaking softly among themselves, last night, of some blame against you. They were wrong.’
The Carrier’s Wife was silent. Caleb answered for her.
‘They were wrong,’ he said.
‘I knew it!’ cried Bertha, proudly. ‘I told them so. I scorned to hear a word! Blame her with justice!’ she pressed the hand between her own, and the soft cheek against her face. ‘No! I am not so blind as that.’
Her father went on one side of her, while Dot remained upon the other: holding her hand.
‘I know you all,’ said Bertha, ‘better than you think. But none so well as her. Not even you, father. There is nothing half so real and so true about me, as she is. If I could be restored to sight this instant, and not a word were spoken, I could choose her from a crowd! My sister!’
‘Bertha, my dear!’ said Caleb, ‘I have something on my mind I want to tell you, while we three are alone. Hear me kindly! I have a confession to make to you, my darling.’
‘A confession, father?’
‘I have wandered from the truth and lost myself, my child,’ said Caleb, with a pitiable expression in his bewildered face. ‘I have wandered from the truth, intending to be kind to you; and have been cruel.’
She turned her wonder–stricken face towards him, and repeated ‘Cruel!’
‘He accuses himself too strongly, Bertha,’ said Dot. ‘You’ll say so, presently. You’ll be the first to tell him so.’
‘He cruel to me!’ cried Bertha, with a smile of incredulity.
‘Not meaning it, my child,’ said Caleb. ‘But I have been; though I never suspected it, till yesterday. My dear blind daughter, hear me and forgive me! The world you live in, heart of mine, doesn’t exist as I have represented it. The eyes you have trusted in, have been false to you.’
She turned her wonder–stricken face towards him still; but drew back, and clung closer to her friend.
‘Your road in life was rough, my poor one,’ said Caleb, ‘and I meant to smooth it for you. I have altered objects, changed the characters of people, invented many things that never have been, to make you happier. I have had concealments from you, put deceptions on you, God forgive me! and surrounded you with fancies.’
‘But living people are not fancies!’ she said hurriedly, and turning very pale, and still retiring from him. ‘You can’t change them.’
‘I have done so, Bertha,’ pleaded Caleb. ‘There is one person that you know, my dove—’
‘Oh father! why do you say, I know?’ she answered, in a term of keen reproach. ‘What and whom do I know! I who have no leader! I so miserably blind.’
In the anguish of her heart, she stretched out her hands, as if she were groping her way; then spread them, in a manner most forlorn and sad, upon her face.
‘The marriage that takes place to–day,’ said Caleb, ‘is with a stern, sordid, grinding man. A hard master to you and me, my dear, for many years. Ugly in his looks, and in his nature. Cold and callous always. Unlike what I have painted him to you in everything, my child. In everything.’
‘Oh why,’ cried the Blind Girl, tortured, as it seemed, almost beyond endurance, ‘why did you ever do this! Why did you ever fill my heart so full, and then come in like Death, and tear away the objects of my love! O Heaven, how blind I am! How helpless and alone!’
Her afflicted father hung his head, and offered no reply but in his penitence and sorrow.
She had been but a short time in this passion of regret, when the Cricket on the Hearth, unheard by all but her, began to chirp. Not merrily, but in a low, faint, sorrowing way. It was so mournful that her tears began to flow; and when the Presence which had been beside the Carrier all night, appeared behind her, pointing to her father, they fell down like rain.
She heard the Cricket–voice more plainly soon, and was conscious, through her blindness, of the Presence hovering about her father.
‘Mary,’ said the Blind Girl, ‘tell me what my home is. What it truly is.’
‘It is a poor place, Bertha; very poor and bare indeed. The house will scarcely keep out wind and rain another winter. It is as roughly shielded from the weather, Bertha,’ Dot continued in a low, clear voice, ‘as your poor father in his sack–cloth coat.’
The Blind Girl, greatly agitated, rose, and led the Carrier’s little wife aside.
‘Those presents that I took such care of; that came almost at my wish, and were so dearly welcome to me,’ she said, trembling; ‘where did they come from? Did you send them?’
‘No.’
‘Who then?’
Dot saw she knew, already, and was silent. The Blind Girl spread her hands before her face again. But in quite another manner now.
‘Dear Mary, a moment. One moment? More this way. Speak softly to me. You are true, I know. You’d not deceive me now; would you?’
‘No, Bertha, indeed!’
‘No, I am sure you would not. You have too much pity for me. Mary, look across the room to where we were just now—to where my father is—my father, so compassionate and loving to me—and tell me what you see.’
‘I see,’ said Dot, who understood her well, ‘an old man sitting in a chair, and leaning sorrowfully on the back, with his face resting on his hand. As if his child should comfort him, Bertha.’
‘Yes, yes. She will. Go on.’
‘He is an old man, worn with care and work. He is a spare, dejected, thoughtful, grey–haired man. I see him now, despondent and bowed down, and striving against nothing. But, Bertha, I have seen him many times before, and striving hard in many ways for one great sacred object. And I honour his grey head, and bless him!’
The Blind Girl broke away from her; and throwing herself upon her knees before him, took the grey head to her breast.
‘It is my sight restored. It is my sight!’ she cried. ‘I have been blind, and now my eyes are open. I never knew him! To think I might have died, and never truly seen the father who has been so loving to me!’
There were no words for Caleb’s emotion.
‘There is not a gallant figure on this earth,’ exclaimed the Blind Girl, holding him in her embrace, ‘that I would love so dearly, and would cherish so devotedly, as this! The greyer, and more worn, the dearer, father! Never let them say I am blind again. There’s not a furrow in his face, there’s not a hair upon his head, that shall be forgotten in my prayers and thanks to Heaven!’
Caleb managed to articulate ‘My Bertha!’
‘And in my blindness, I believed him,’ said the girl, caressing him with tears of exquisite affection, ‘to be so different! And having him beside me, day by day, so mindful of me—always, never dreamed of this!’
‘The fresh smart father in the blue coat, Bertha,’ said poor Caleb. ‘He’s gone!’
‘Nothing is gone,’ she answered. ‘Dearest father, no! Everything is here—in you. The father that I loved so well; the father that I never loved enough, and never knew; the benefactor whom I first began to reverence and love, because he had such sympathy for me; All are here in you. Nothing is dead to me. The soul of all that was most dear to me is here—here, with the worn face, and the grey head. And I am not blind, father, any longer!’
Dot’s whole attention had been concentrated, during this discourse, upon the father and daughter; but looking, now, towards the little Haymaker in the Moorish meadow, she saw that the clock was within a few minutes of striking, and fell, immediately, into a nervous and excited state.
‘Father,’ said Bertha, hesitating. ‘Mary.’
