St. Elmo Part 46

"Do not stand here in the rain. In a few minutes we shall start, and I prefer that you should not wait. Please go home at once, Mr.

Murray."

He shook his head, but caught her hand and leaned his cheek against the soft palm, pa.s.sing it gently and caressingly over his haggard face.

The engine whistled; Mr. Murray pressed a long, warm kiss on the hand he had taken, the cars moved on; and as he lifted his hat, giving her one of his imperial, graceful bows, Edna had a last glimpse of the dark, chiselled, repulsive yet handsome face that had throws its baleful image deep in her young heart, and defied all her efforts to expel it. The wind howled around the cars, the rain fell heavily, beating a dismal tattoo on the gla.s.s, the night was mournfully dreary, and the orphan sank back and lowered her veil, and hid her face in her hands.

Henceforth she felt that in obedience to her own decision, and fiat

"They stood aloof, the scars remaining Like cliffs that had been rent asunder; A dreary sea now flows between; But neither heat nor frost nor thunder Shall wholly do away, I ween, The marks of that which once hath been."

CHAPTER XXIV.

As day dawned the drab clouds blanched, broke up in marbled ma.s.ses, the rain ceased, the wind sang out of the west, heralding the coming blue and gold, and at noon not one pearly vapor sail dotted the sky.

During the afternoon Edna looked anxiously for the first glimpse of "Lookout," but a trifling accident detained the train for several hours, and it was almost twilight when she saw it, a purple spot staining the clear beryl horizon; spreading rapidly, shifting its Tyrian mantle for gray robes; and at length the rising moon silvered its rocky crest, as it towered in silent majesty over the little village nestled at its base. The kind and gentlemanly conductor on the cars accompanied Edna to the hotel, and gave her a parcel containing several late papers. As she sat in her small room, weary and yet sleepless, she tried to divert her thoughts by reading the journals, and found in three of them notices of the last number of ---- Magazine, and especial mention of her essay: "Keeping the Vigil of St. Martin under the Pines of Grutli."

The extravagant laudations of this article surprised her, and she saw that while much curiosity was indulged concerning the authorship, one of the editors ventured to attribute it to a celebrated and very able writer, whose genius and erudition had lifted him to an enviable eminence in the world of American letters.

The criticisms were excessively flattering, and the young author, gratified at the complete success that had crowned her efforts, cut out the friendly notices, intending to enclose them in a letter to Mrs. Murray.

Unable to sleep, giving audience to memories of her early childhood, she pa.s.sed the night at her window, watching the constellations go down behind the dark, frowning ma.s.s of rock that lifted its parapets to the midnight sky, and in the morning light saw the cold, misty cowl drawn over the venerable h.o.a.ry head.

The village had changed so materially that she could scarcely recognize any of the old landmarks, and the people who kept the hotel could tell her nothing about Peter Wood, the miller. After breakfast she took a box containing some flowers packed in wet cotton, and walked out on the road leading in the direction of the blacksmith's shop. Very soon the trees became familiar, she remembered every turn of the road and bend on the fences; and at last the grove of oak and chestnut shading the knoll at the intersection of the roads met her eye. She looked for the forge and bellows, for the anvil and slack-tub; but shop and shed had fallen to decay, and only a heap of rubbish, overgrown with rank weeds and vines, marked the spot where she had spent so many happy hours. The glowing yellow chestnut leaves dropped down at her feet, and the oaks tossed their gnarled arms as if welcoming the wanderer whose head they had shaded in infancy, and, stifling a moan, the orphan hurried on.

She saw that the timber had been cut down, and fences enclosed cultivated fields where forests had stood when she went away. At a sudden bend in the narrow, irregular road when she held her breath and leaned forward to see the old house where she was born and reared, a sharp cry of pain escaped her. Not a vestige of the homestead remained, save the rocky chimney, standing in memoriam in the centre of a cornfield. She leaned against the low fence, and tears trickled down her cheeks as memory rebuilt the log-house, and placed the split-bottomed rocking-chair on the porch in front, and filled it with the figure of a white-haired old man, with his pipe in his hand and his blurred eyes staring at the moon.

Through the brown corn-stalks she could see the gaping mouth of the well, now partly filled with rubbish; and the wreaths of scarlet cypress which once fringed the shed above it and hung their flaming trumpets down until they almost touched her childish head, as she sang at the well where she scoured the cedar piggin, were bereft of all support and trailed helplessly over the ground. Close to the fence, and beyond the reach of plough and hoe, a yellow four-o'clock with closed flowers marked the location of the little garden; and one tall larkspur leaned against the fence, sole survivor of the blue pets that Edna had loved so well in the early years. She put her fingers through a crevice, broke the plumy spray, and as she pressed it to her face, she dropped her head upon the rails and gave herself up to the flood of painful yet inexpressibly precious memories.

How carefully she had worked and weeded this little plat; how proud she once was of her rosemary and pinks, her double feathery poppies, her sweet-scented lemon-gra.s.s; how eagerly she had transplanted wood violets and purple phlox from the forest; how often she had sat on the steps watching for her grandfather's return, and stringing those four-o'clock blossoms into golden crowns for her own young head; and how gayly she had sometimes swung them over Brindle's horns, when she went out to milk her.

"Ah! sad and strange, as in dark summer dawns The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds To dying ears, when unto dying eyes The cas.e.m.e.nt slowly grows a glimmering square; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more."

With a sob she turned away and walked in the direction of the burying-ground; for there, certainly, she would find all unchanged; graves at least were permanent.

The little spring bubbled as of yore, the brush creepers made a tangled tapestry around it, and crimson and blue convolvulus swung their velvety, dew-beaded chalices above it, as on that June morning long ago when she stood there filling her bucket, waiting for the sunrise.

She took off her gloves, knelt down beside the spring, and dipping up the cold, sparkling water in her palms, drank and wept, and drank again. She bathed her aching eyes, and almost cheated herself into the belief that she heard again Grip's fierce bark ringing through the woods, and the slow, drowsy tinkle of Brindle's bell. Turning aside from the beaten track, she entered the thick grove of chestnuts, and looked around for the grave of the Dents; but the mound had disappeared, and though she recognized the particular tree which had formerly overhung it, and searched the ground carefully, she could discover no trace of the hillock where she had so often scattered flowers. A squirrel leaped and frisked in the boughs above her, and she startled a rabbit from the thick gra.s.s and fallen yellow leaves: but neither these, nor the twitter of gossiping orioles, nor the harsh, hungry cry of a bluebird told her a syllable of all that had happened in her absence.

She conjectured that the bodies had probably been disinterred by friends and removed to Georgia; and she hurried on toward the hillside, where the neighborhood graveyard was situated. The rude, unpainted paling still enclosed it, and rows of headboards stretched away among gra.s.s and weeds; but whose was that shining marble shaft, standing in the centre of a neatly arranged square, around which ran a handsome iron railing? On that very spot, in years gone by, had stood a piece of pine board: "Sacred to the memory of Aaron Hunt, an honest blacksmith and true Christian."

Who had dared to disturb his bones, to violate his last resting- place, and to steal his grave for the interment of some wealthy stranger? A cry of horror and astonishment broke from the orphan's trembling lips, and she shaded her eyes with her hand, and tried to read the name inscribed on the monument of the sacrilegious interloper. But bitter, scalding tears of indignation blinded her.

She dashed them away, but they gathered and fell faster; and, unbolting the gate, she entered the enclosure and stepped close to the marble.

ERECTED IN HONOR OF AARON HUNT: BY HIS DEVOTED GRANDDAUGHTER.

These gilded words were traced on the polished surface of the pure white obelisk, and on each corner of the square pedestal or base stood beautifully carved vases, from which drooped glossy tendrils of ivy.

As Edna looked in amazement at the glittering shaft, which rose twenty feet in the autumn air; as she rubbed her eyes and re-read the golden inscription, and looked at the sanded walks, and the well-trimmed evergreens, which told that careful hands kept the lot in order, she sank down at the base of the beautiful monument, and laid her hot cheek on the cold marble.

"Oh, Grandpa, Grandpa! He is not altogether wicked and callous as we once thought him, or he could never have done this! Forgive your poor little Pearl, if she can not help loving one who, for her sake, honors your dear name and memory! Oh, Grandpa! if I had never gone away from here. If I could have died before I saw him again! before this great pain fell upon my heart!"

She knew now where St. Elmo Murray went that night, after he had watched her from behind the sarcophagus and the mummies; knew that only his hand could have erected this n.o.ble pillar of record; and most fully did she appreciate the delicate feeling which made him so proudly reticent on this subject. He wished no element of grat.i.tude in the love he had endeavored to win, and scorned to take advantage of her devoted affection for her grandfather, by touching her heart with a knowledge of the tribute paid to his memory. Until this moment she had sternly refused to permit herself to believe all his protestations of love; had tried to think that he merely desired to make her acknowledge his power, and confess an affection flattering to his vanity. But to-day she felt that all he had avowed was true; that his proud, bitter heart was indeed entirely hers; that this a.s.surance filled her own heart with a measureless joy, a rapture that made her eyes sparkle through their tears and brought a momentary glow to her cheeks. Hour after hour pa.s.sed; she took no note of time, and sat there pondering her past life, thinking how the dusty heart deep under the marble would have throbbed with fond pride, if it could only have known what the world said of her writings. That she should prove competent to teach the neighbors'

children had been Aaron Hunt's loftiest ambition for his darling; and now she was deemed worthy to speak to her race through the columns of a periodical that few women were considered able to fill.

She wondered if he were not really cognizant of it all; if he were not watching her struggles and her triumph; and she asked herself why he was not allowed, in token of tender sympathy, to drop one palm-leaf on her head, from the fadeless branch he waved in heaven?

"Oh! how far, How far and safe, G.o.d, dost thou keep thy saints When once gone from us! We may call against The lighted windows of thy fair June heaven Where all the souls are happy; and not one, Not even my father, look from work or play, To ask, 'Who is it that cries after us, Below there, in the dark?"

The shaft threw a long slanting shadow eastward as the orphan rose, and, taking from the box the fragrant exotics which she had brought from Le Bocage, arranged them in the damp soil of one of the vases, and twined their bright-hued petals among the dark green ivy leaves.

One shining wreath she broke and laid away tenderly in the box, a hallowed souvenir of the sacred spot where it grew; and as she stood there, looking at a garland of poppy leaves chiselled around the inscription, neither flush nor tremor told aught that pa.s.sed in her mind, and her sculptured features were calm, as the afternoon sun showed how pale and fixed her face had grown. She climbed upon the broad base and pressed her lips to her grandfather's name, and there was a mournful sweetness in her voice as she said aloud:

"Pray G.o.d to pardon him, Grandpa! Pray Christ to comfort and save his precious soul! Oh, Grandpa! pray the Holy Spirit to melt and sanctify his suffering heart!"

It was painful to quit the place. She lingered, and started away, and came back, and at last knelt down and hid her face, and prayed long and silently.

Then turning quickly, she closed the iron gate, and without trusting herself for another look, walked away. She pa.s.sed the spring and the homestead ruins, and finally found herself in sight of the miller's house, which alone seemed unchanged. As she lifted the latch of the gate and entered the yard, it seemed but yesterday that she was driven away to the depot in the miller's covered cart.

An ancient apple-tree, that she well remembered, stood near the house, and the spreading branches were bent almost to the earth with the weight of red-streaked apples, round and ripe. The s.h.a.ggy, black dog, that so often frolicked with Grip in the days gone by, now lay on the step, blinking at the sun and the flies that now and then buzzed over the golden balsam, whose crimson seed glowed in the evening sunshine.

Over the rocky well rose a rude arbor, where a scuppernong vine clambered and hung its rich, luscious brown cl.u.s.ters; and here, with a pipe between her lips, and at her feet a basket full of red pepper-pods, which she was busily engaged in stringing, sat an elderly woman. She was clad in blue and yellow plaid homespun, and wore a white ap.r.o.n and a snowy muslin cap, whose crimped ruffles pressed caressingly the grizzled hair combed so smoothly over her temples. Presently she laid her pipe down on the top of the mossy well, where the dripping bucket sat, and lifted the scarlet wreath of peppers, eyed it satisfactorily, and, as she resumed her work, began to hum "Auld Lang Syne."

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And days o' lang syne?"

The countenance was so peaceful and earnest and honest, that, as Edna stood watching it, a warm, loving light came into her own beautiful eyes, and she put out both hands unconsciously, and stepped into the little arbor.

Her shadow fell upon the matronly face, and the woman rose and courtesied.

"Good evening, miss. Will you be seated? There is room enough for two on my bench."

The orphan did not speak for a moment, but looked up in the brown, wrinkled face, and then, pushing back her bonnet and veil, she said eagerly:

"Mrs. Wood, don't you know me?"

The miller's wife looked curiously at her visitor, glanced at her dress, and shook her head.

"No, miss; if ever I set my eyes on you before, it's more than I remember, and Dorothy Wood has a powerful memory, they say, and seldom forgets faces."

"Do you remember Aaron Hunt, and his daughter Hester?"

"To be sure I do; but you a'n't neither the one nor the other, I take it. Stop--let me see. Aha! Tabitha, Willis, you children, run here--quick! But, no--it can't be. You can't be Edna Earl?"

She shaded her eyes from the glare of the sun and stooped forward, and looked searchingly at the stranger; then the coral wreath fell from her fingers, she stretched out her arms, and the large mouth trembled and twitched.

"Are you--can you be--little Edna? Aaron Hunt's grandchild?"

"I am the poor little Edna you took such tender care of in her great affliction--"