CHAPTER XXXIX
THE BLESSINGS WHICH COME FROM THE DEATH OF THE WICKED
It was three weeks after Martin Newcombe's letter came before BenGreenway arrived in Spanish Town. He had had a hard time to get there,having but little money and no friends to help him; but he had a strongheart and an earnest, and so he was bound to get there at last; and,although Kate saw no visitors, she saw him. She was not dressed inmourning; she could not wear black for herself.
She greeted the Scotchman with earnestness; he was a friend out of theold past, but she gave him no chance to speak first.
"Ben," she exclaimed, "have you a message for me?"
"No message," he replied, "but I hae somethin' on my heart I wish to sayto ye. I hae toiled an' laboured an' hae striven wi' mony obstacles toget to ye an' to say it."
She looked at him, with her brows knit, wondering if she should allowhim to speak; then, with the words scarcely audible between her tightlyclosed lips, she said: "Ben, what is it?"
"It is this, an' no more nor less," replied the Scotchman; "he was neverfit to be your father, an' it is not fit now for ye to remember him asyour father. I was faithful to him to the vera last, but there was notruth in him. It is an abomination an' a wickedness for ye to rememberhim as your father!"
Kate spoke no word, nor did she shed a tear.
"It was my heart's desire ye should know it," said the Scotchman, "an' Icame mony a weary league to tell ye so."
"Ben," said she, "I think I have known it for a long time, but I wouldnot suffer myself to believe it; but now, having heard your words, I amsure of it."
"Uncle," said she an hour afterward, "I have no father, and I never hadone."
With tears in his eyes he folded her to his breast, and peace began torise in his soul. No greater blessing can come to really good peoplethan the absolute disappearance of the wicked.
And the wickedness which had so long shadowed and stained the life ofKate Bonnet was now removed from it. It was hard to get away from theshadow and to wipe off the stain, but she was a brave girl and she didit.
In this work of her life--a work which if not accomplished would makethat life not worth the living--Kate was much helped by Dickory; and hehelped her by not saying a word about it or ever allowing himself, whenin her presence, to remember that there had been a shadow or a stain.And if he thought of it at all when by himself, his only feeling was oneof thankfulness that what had happened had given her to him.
Even the Governor brightened. He had striven hard to keep from Kate thenews which had come to him from Charles Town, suppressing it in thehopes that it might reach her more gradually and with less terribleeffect than if he told it, but now that he knew that she knew it theblessings which are shed abroad by the disappearance of the wickedaffected him also, and he brightened. There were no functions for Kate,but she brightened, striving with all her soul to have this so, for herown sake as well as that of others. As for Mr. Delaplaine, Dame Charter,and Dickory, they brightened without any trouble at all, thedisappearance of the wicked having such a direct and forcible effectupon them.
Dickory Charter, who matured in a fashion which made everybody forgetthat Kate Bonnet was eleven months his senior, entered into businesswith Mr. Delaplaine, and Jamaica became the home of this happy family,whose welfare was founded, as on a rock, upon the disappearance of thewicked.
Here, then, was a brave girl who had loved her father with a love whichwas more than that of a daughter, which was the love of a mother, of awife; who had loved him in prosperity and in times of sorrow and ofshame; who had rejoiced like an angel whenever he turned his footstepsinto the right way, and who had mourned like an angel whenever he wentwrong. She had longed to throw her arms around her father's neck, tohold him to her, and thus keep off the hangman's noose. Her courage andaffection never waned until those arms were rudely thrust aside andtheir devoted owner dastardly repulsed.
True to herself and to him, she loved her father so long as there wasanything parental in him which she might love; and, true to herself,when he had left her nothing she might love, she bowed her head andsuffered him, as he passed out of his life, to pass out of her own.