Darkness and Daylight Part 16

The wild March winds by this time had given place to the warmer, balmier air of April. The winter snow had melted from the hillside, and here and there tufts of fresh young gra.s.s were seen starting into life. It was just such a morning, in short, as is most grateful to the young, and Edith felt its inspiriting influence as she rode along the rather muddy road. Another there was, too, who felt it; and as Edith sauntered slowly up the path, entering this time upon the rear piazza instead of the front, she heard again the soft, low voice which had sounded so mournful and sweet when heard in the still moonlight. Looking up she saw that a window of the Den was open, and through the lattice work a little hand was thrust, as if beckoning her to come. Stepping bank she tried to obtain a view of the person, but failed to do so, though the hand continued beckoning, and from the height there floated down to her the single word, "MIGGIE." That was all; but it brought her hand to her head as if she had received a sudden blow.

"Miggie--Miggie," she repeated. "I HAVE heard that name before. It must have belonged to some one in the Asylum."

A confused murmur as if of expostulation and remonstrance was now heard--the childish hand disappeared and scarcely knowing what she was about, Edith stepped into the hall and advanced into the library, where she sat down to wait for Arthur. It was not long ere he appeared, locking the door as he came in and thus cutting off all communication between that room and the stairway leading to the Den. Matters were, in Edith's estimation, a.s.suming a serious aspect, and remembering how pleadingly the name "Miggie"

had been uttered, she half-resolved to demand of Arthur the immediate release of the helpless creature thus held in durance vile. But he looked so unhappy, so hopelessly wretched that her sympathy was soon enlisted for him rather than his fair captive.

Still she would try him a little and when they were fairly at work she said to him jestingly,

"I heard it hinted that you would bring home a wife, but I do not see her. Where is she, pray?"

Arthur uttered no sound save a stifled moan, and when Edith dared to steal a look at him she saw that his brown hair was moist with perspiration, which stood also in drops about his lips.

"Mr. St. Claire," she said, throwing down her pencil and leaning back in her chair, "I can endure this no longer. What IS the matter? Tell me. You have some great mental sorrow, I know, and I long to share it with you--may I? Who have you up stairs and why this mystery concerning her?"

She laid her hand upon his arm, and looked imploringly into the face, which turned away from her, as if afraid to meet her truthful glance. Once he thought to tell her all, but when he remembered how beautiful she was, how much he loved her, and how dear her society was to him, he refrained, for he vainly fancied that a confession would drive her from him forever. He did not know Edith Hastings; he had not yet fathomed the depths of her womanly nature, and he could not guess how tenderly, even while her own heart was breaking, she would have soothed his grief and been like an angel of mercy to the innocent cause of all his woe.

"I dare not tell you," he said. "You would hate me if I did, and that I could not endure. It may not be pleasant for you to come here any more, and perhaps you had better not."

For a moment Edith sat motionless. She had not expected this from Arthur, and it roused within her a feeling of resentment.

"And so you only sent for me to give me my dismissal," she said, in a cold, icy tone. "Be it as you like. I draw tolerably well, you say. I have no doubt I can get along alone. Send your bill at once to Mr. Harrington. He does not like to be in debt."

She spoke proudly, haughtily, and her eyes, usually so soft in their expression, had in them a black look of anger, which pierced Arthur's very soul. He could not part with her THUS, and grasping the hand reached out to take its gauntlet, he held it fast, while he said, "What are we doing, Edith? Quarrelling? It must not be. I suggested your giving up the lessons because I thought the arrangement might be satisfactory to you, and not because _I_ wished it, for I do not; I cannot give up the only source of happiness left to me. Forget what I said. Remain my pupil and I'll try to be more cheerful in your presence. You shall NOT help to bear my burden as you bear that of Collingwood's unfortunate inmates."

Edith never liked to hear her relations to Richard referred to in this manner, and she answered quickly,

"You are mistaken, Mr. St. Claire, in thinking I bear any burden either here or elsewhere. No one ever had a happier home than I, and there's nothing on earth I would not do for Richard."

"Would you marry him, Edith?" and Arthur scanned her closely.

"Would you be his wife if he demanded it as his right? and I think he will do this sometime."

Edith trembled from head to foot, as she answered,

"Not if he demanded it as a right, though he might well do that, for I owe him everything. But if he loved me, and I loved him."

She paused, and in the silence which ensued the tumultuous beating of her heart was plainly audible. No one before had suggested to her the possibility of her being Richard's wife, and the idea was terrible to her. She loved him, but not as a wife should love her husband. He loved her, too; and now, as she remembered many things in the past, she was half convinced that she to him was dearer than a sister, child, or friend. He had forgotten the Swedish baby's mother. She knew he had by his always checking her when she attempted to speak of Eloise. Out of the ashes of this early love a later love had sprung, and SHE was possibly its object. The thought was a crushing one, and unmindful of Arthur's presence she laid her head upon the table and sobbed,

"It cannot be. Richard will never ask me to be his wife. Never, oh never."

"But if he does, Edith, you will not tell him NO. Promise me that.

It's my only hope of salvation from total ruin!" and Arthur drew so near to her that his arm found its way around her slender waist.

Had he struck her with a glittering dagger he could not have hurt her more than by pleading with her to be another's wife. But she would not let him know it. He did not love her as she had sometimes foolishly fancied he did; and lifting up her head she answered him proudly,

"Yes, Arthur St. Claire, when Richard Harrington asks me to be his bride I will not tell him no. Are you satisfied?"

"I am," he said, though his white lips gave the lie to the words he uttered, and his heart smote him cruelly for his selfishness in wishing to save himself by sacrificing Edith; and it would be a sacrifice, he knew--a fearful sacrifice, the giving her to a blind man, old enough to be her sire, n.o.ble, generous and good, though he were.

It was a little singular that Arthur's arm should still linger about the waist of one who had promised to be another's wife, provided she were asked, but so it was; it staid there, while he persuaded her to come again to Gra.s.sy Spring, and not to give up the lessons so pleasant to them both.

He was bending very near to her when a sound upon the stairs caught his ear. It was the same German air Edith had heard in the yard, and she listened breathlessly while it came nearer to the door. Suddenly the singer seemed to change her mind, for the music began slowly to recede and was soon lost to hearing within the four walls of the Den. Not a word was spoken by either Arthur or Edith, until the latter said,

"It is time I was at home," and she arose to go.

He offered no remonstrance, but accompanying her to the gate, placed her in the saddle, and then stood watching her as she galloped away.

CHAPTER XV.

NINA.

Three or four times Edith went to Gra.s.sy Spring, seeing nothing of the mysterious occupant of the Den, hearing nothing of her, and she began to think she might have returned to Worcester. Many times she was on the point of questioning Arthur, but from what had pa.s.sed, she knew how disagreeable the subject was to him, and she generously forbore.

"I think he might tell me, anyway," she said to herself, half poutingly, when, one morning near the latter part of April, she rode slowly toward Gra.s.sy Spring.

Their quarrel, if quarrel it could be called, had been made up, or, rather, tacitly forgotten, and Arthur more than once had cursed himself for having, in a moment of excitement, asked her to marry Richard Harrington. While praying to be delivered from temptation he was constantly keeping his eyes fixed upon the forbidden fruit, longing for it more and move, and feeling how worthless life would be to him without it. Still, by a mighty effort, he restrained himself from doing or saying aught which could be constrained into expressions of love, and their interviews were much like those which had preceded his last visit to Worcester. People were beginning to talk about him and his beautiful pupil, but leading the isolated life he did, it came not to his ears. Grace indeed, might have enlightened both himself and Edith with regard to the village gossip, but looking upon the latter as her rival, and desiring greatly that she should marry Arthur, she forebore from communicating to either of them anything which would be likely to r.e.t.a.r.d an affair she fancied was progressing famously. Thus without a counsellor or friend was Edith left to follow the bent of her inclinations; and on this April morning, as she rode along, mentally chiding Arthur for not entrusting his secret to her, she wondered how she had ever managed to be happy without him, and if the time would ever come when her visits to Gra.s.sy Spring would cease.

Leaving Bedouin at the rear gate she walked slowly to the house, glancing often in the direction of the DEN, the windows of which were open this morning, and as she came near she saw a pair of soft blue eyes peering at her through the lattice, then a little hand was thrust outside, beckoning to her as it did once before.

"Wait, Miggie, while I write," came next to her ear, in a voice as sweet and plaintive as a broken lute.

Instantly Edith stopped, and at last a tiny note came fluttering to her feet. Grasping it eagerly she read, in a pretty, girlish hand:

"DARLING MIGGIE:--Nina has been SO sick this great long while, and her head is so full of pain. Why don't you come to me, Miggie? I sit and wait and listen till my forehead thumps and thumps, just as a bad nurse thumped it once down in the Asylum.

"Let's run away--you and I; run back to the magnolias, where it's always summer, with no asylums full of wicked people.

"I'm so lonely, Miggie. Come up stairs, won't you? They say I rave and tear my clothes, but I won't any more if you'll come. Tell Arthur so. He's good. He'll do what you ask him."

"Poor little Nina," and Edith's tears fell fast upon the bit of paper. "I WILL see you to-day. Perhaps I may do you some good.

Dear, unfortunate Nina!"

There was a step upon the gra.s.s, and thrusting the note into her pocket, Edith turned to meet Arthur, who seemed this morning unusually cheerful and greeted her with something like his olden tenderness. But Edith was too intent upon Nina to think much of him, and after the lesson commenced, she appeared so abstracted that it was Arthur's turn to ask if she were offended. She had made herself believe she was, for notwithstanding Nina's a.s.sertion that "Arthur was good," she thought it a sin and a shame for him to keep any thing but a raving lunatic hidden away up stairs; and after a moment's hesitation she answered, "Yes, I am offended, and I don't mean to come here any more, unless---"

"Edith," and the tone of Arthur's voice was fraught with pain so exquisite that Edith paused and looked into his face, where various emotions were plainly visible. Love, fear, remorse, apprehension, all were blended together in the look he fixed upon her. "You won't leave me," he said. "Any thing but that. Tell me my error, and how I can atone."

Edith was about to speak, when, on the stairs without,--the stairs leading from the den--there was the patter of little feet, and a gentle, timid knock was heard upon the door.

"It's locked--go back;" and Arthur's voice had in it a tone of command.

"Mr. St. Claire," and Edith sprang from her chair, "I can unlock that door, and I will."

Like a block of marble Arthur stood while Edith opened the oak- paneled door. Another moment and Nina stood before her, as she stands now first before our readers.

Edith knew her in a moment from the resemblance to the daguerreotype seen more than eight years before, and as she now scanned her features it seemed to her they had scarcely changed at all. Arthur had said of her then that she was not quite sixteen, consequently she was now nearly twenty-five, but she did not look as old as Edith, so slight was her form, so delicate her limbs, and so childlike and simple the expression of her face. She was very, very fair, and Edith felt that never before had she looked upon a face so exquisitely beautiful. Her hair was of a reddish- yellow hue, and rippled in short silken rings all over her head, curling softly in her neck, but was not nearly as long as it had been in the picture. Alas, the murderous shears had more than once strayed roughly among those golden locks, to keep the little white, fat hands, now clasped so harmlessly together, from tearing them out with frantic violence. Edith thought of this and sighed, while her heart yearned toward the helpless young creature, who stood regarding her with a scrutinizing glance, as one studies a beautiful picture. The face was very white--indeed, it seemed as if it were long since the blood had visited the cheeks, which, nevertheless, were round and plump, as were the finely moulded arms, displayed to good advantage by the loose sleeves of the crimson cashmere wrapper. The eyes were deeply, darkly blue, and the strangely gleaming light which shone from them, betrayed at once the terrible truth that Nina was crazed.

It was a novel sight, those two young girls watching each other so intently, both so beautiful and yet so unlike--the one, tall, stately, and almost queen-like in her proportions, with dark, brilliant complexion; eyes of midnight blackness, and ma.s.ses of raven hair, bound around her head in many a heavy braid--the other, fairy-like in size, with golden curls and soft blue eyes, which filled with tears at last as some undefinable emotion swept over her. In the rich, dark beauty of Edith's face there was a wonderful fascination, which riveted the crazy girl to the spot where she had stopped when first she crossed the threshold, and when at last, sinking upon the sofa, Edith extended her arms, as a mother to her child, poor little Nina went forward, and with a low, gasping sob, fell upon her bosom, weeping pa.s.sionately, her whole frame trembling and her sobs so violent that Edith became alarmed, and tried by kisses and soft endearing words to soothe her grief and check the tears raining in torrents from her eyes.