Darkness and Daylight Part 17

"It's nice to cry. It takes the heavy pain away," and Nina made a gesture that Edith must not stop her, while Arthur, roused from his apathy, also said,

"She has not wept before in years. It will be a great relief."

At the sound of HIS voice Nina lifted up her head, and turned toward the corner whence it came, but Edith saw that in the glance there was neither reproach nor fear, nothing save trusting confidence, and her heart insensibly softened toward him.

"Poor Arthur," Nina murmured, and laying her head again on Edith's bosom, she said, "Every body is sad where I am, but I can't help it. Oh, I can't help it. Nina's crazy, Miggie, Nina is. Poor Nina," and the voice which uttered these words was so sadly touching that Edith's tears mingled with those of the young creature she hugged the closer to her, whispering,

"I know it, darling, and I pity you so much. Maybe you'll get well, now that you know me."

"Yea, if you'll stay here always," said Nina. "What made you gone so long? I wanted you so much when the nights were dark and lonesome, and little bits of faces bent over me like yours used to be, Miggie--yours in the picture, when you wore the red morocco shoe and I led you on the high verandah."

"What does she mean?" asked Edith, who had listened to the words as to something not wholly new to her.

"I don't know," returned Arthur, "unless she has confounded you with her sister, MARGUERITE, who died many years ago, I have heard that Nina, failing to speak the real name, always called her MIGGIE. Possibly you resemble Miggie's mother. I think Aunt Phillis said you did."

Edith, too, remembered Phillis' saying that she looked like "Master Bernard's" wife, and Arthur's explanations seemed highly probable.

"Dear, darling Nina," she said, kissing the pure white forehead, "I WILL be a sister to you."

"And stay with me?" persisted Nina. "Sleep with me nights with your arms round my neck, just like yon used to do? I hate to sleep alone, with Soph coiled up on the floor, she scares me so, and won't answer when I call her. Then, when I'm put in the recess, it's terrible. DON'T let me go in there again, will you?"

Edith had not like Grace, looked into the large closet adjoining the Den, and she did not know what Nina meant, but at a venture she replied,

"No, darling. You'll be so good that they will not wish to put you there."

"I CAN'T," returned Nina, with the manner of one who distrusted herself. "I try, because it will please Arthur, but I must sing and dance and pull my hair when my head feels so big and heavy, and once, Miggie, when it was big as the house, and I pulled my hair till they shaved it off, I tore my clothes in pieces and threw them into the fire. Then, when Arthur came--Dr. Griswold sent for him, you see--I buried my fingers in HIS hair, so," and she was about to clutch her own golden locks when Edith shudderingly caught her hands and held them tightly lest they should harm the tresses she thought so beautiful.

"Arthur cried," continued Nina--"cried so hard that my brain grew cool at once. It's dreadful to see a man cry, Miggie--a great, strong man like Arthur. Poor Arthur, didn't you cry and call me your lost Nina?"

A suppressed moan was Arthur's answer, and Nina, when she heard it, slid from Edith's arms and crossing over to where she sat, climbed into his lap with all the freedom of a little child, and winding her arms about his neck, said to him softly,

"Don't be so sorry, Arthur, Nina'll be good. Nina is good now.

He's crying again. Make him stop, wont you? It hurts Nina so.

There, poor boy," and the little waxen hands wiped away the tears falling so fast over Arthur's face.

Holding one upon the end of her finger and watching it until it dropped upon the carpet, she said with a smile, "Look, Miggie, MEN'S tears are bigger than girls."

Oh, how Edith's heart ached for the strange couple opposite her-- the strong man and the crazy young girl who clung to him as confidingly, as if his bosom were her rightful resting place. She pitied them both, but her sympathies were enlisted for Arthur, and coming to his side she laid her hand upon the damp brown locks, which Nina once had torn in her insane fury, and in a voice which spoke volumes of sympathy, whispered, "I am sorry for you."

This was too much for Arthur, and he sobbed aloud, while Edith, forgetting all proprieties in her grief for him, bowed her face upon his head, and he could feel her hot tears dropping on his hair.

For a moment Nina looked from one to the other in silence, then standing upon her feet and bending over both, she said,

"Don't cry, Miggie, don't cry, Arthur. Nina ain't very bad to day.

She wont be bad any more. Don't. It will all come right some time.

It surely will. Nina won't be here always, and there'll be no need to cry when she is gone."

She seemed to think the distress was all on her account, and in her childish way she sought to comfort them until hope whispered to both that, as she said, "It would come right sometime."

Edith was the first to be comforted, for she did not, like Arthur, know what coming right involved. She only thought that possibly Nina's shattered intellect might be restored, and she longed to ask the history of one, thoughts of whom had in a measure been blended with her whole life, during the last eight years. There was a mystery connected with her, she knew, and she was about to question Arthur, who had dried his tears and was winding Nina's short curls around his fingers, when Phillis appeared in the library, starting with surprise when she saw the trio a.s.sembled there.

"Marster Arthur," she began, glancing furtively at Edith, "how came Miss Nina here? Let me take her back. Come, honey," and she reached out her hand to Nina, who, jumping again upon Arthur's knee, clung to him closely, exclaiming, "No, no, old Phillis; Nina's good--Nina'll stay with Miggie!" and as if fancying that Edith would be a surer protector than Arthur, she slid from his lap and running to the sofa where Edith sat, half hid herself behind her, whispering, "Send her off--send her off. Let me stay with you!"

Edith was fearful that Nina's presence might interfere with the story she meant to hear, but she could not find it in her heart to send away the little girl clinging so fondly to her, and to Phillis she said, "She may stay this once, I am sure. I will answer for her good behavior."

"'Taint that--'taint that," muttered Phillis, jerking herself from the room, "but how's the disgrace to be kep' ef everybody sees her."

"Disgrace!" and Edith glanced inquiringly at Arthur.

She could not believe that Nina was any disgrace, and she asked what Phillis meant.

Crossing the room Arthur sat down upon the sofa with Nina between himself and Edith, who was pleased to see that he wound his arm around the young girl as if she were dear to him, notwithstanding her disgrace. Like a child Nina played with his watch chain, his coat b.u.t.tons, and his fingers, apparently oblivious to what was pa.s.sing about her. She only felt that she was where she wished to be, and knowing that he could say before her what he pleased without the least danger of her comprehending a word, Arthur, much to Edith's surprise, began:

"You have seen Nina, Miss Hastings. You know what is the mystery at Gra.s.sy Spring--the mystery about which the villagers are beginning to gossip, so Phillis says, but now that you have seen, now that you know she is here, I care not for the rest. The keenest pang is over and I am beginning already to feel better.

Concealment is not in accordance with my nature, and it has worn on me terribly. Years ago you knew OF Nina; it is due to you now that you know WHO she is, and why her destiny is linked to mine.

Listen, then, while I tell you her sad story."

"But SHE," interrupted Edith, pointing to Nina, whose blue eyes were turned to Arthur. "Will it not be better to wait? Won't she understand?"

"Not a word," he replied. "She's amusing herself, you see, with my b.u.t.tons, and when these fail, I'll give her my drawing pencil, or some one of the numerous playthings I always keep in my pocket for her. She seldom comprehends what we say and never remembers it.

This is one of the peculiar phases of her insanity."

"Poor child," said Edith, involuntarily caressing Nina, who smiled up in her face, and leaning her head upon her shoulder, continued her play with the b.u.t.tons.

Meanwhile Arthur sat lost in thought, determining in his own mind how much he should tell Edith of Nina, and how much withhold. He could not tell her all, even though he knew that by keeping back a part, much of his past conduct would seem wholly inexplicable, but he could not help it, and when at last he saw that Edith was waiting for him, he pressed his hands a moment against his heart to stop its violent beating, and drawing a long, long sigh, began the story.

CHAPTER XVI.

ARTHUR'S STORY.

"I must commence at the beginning," he said, "and tell you first of Nina's father--Ernest Bernard, of Florida. I was a load of fourteen when I met him in Richmond, Virginia, which you know as my former home. He was spending a few weeks there, and dined one day with my guardian, with whom I was then living. I did not fancy him at all. He seemed even to me, a boy, like a bad, unprincipled man, and I afterward learned that such had been his former character, though at the time I knew him he had reformed in a great measure. He was very kind indeed to me, and as I became better acquainted with him my prejudices gradually wore away, until at last I liked him very much, and used to listen with delight to the stories he told of his Florida home, and of his little, golden-haired Nina, always finis.h.i.+ng his remarks concerning he with, 'But you can't have her, boy. n.o.body can marry Nina. Had little Miggie lived you might, perhaps, have been my son-in-law, but you can't as 'tis, for Nina will never marry.'"

"No, Nina can never marry;" and the golden curls shook decidedly, as the Nina in question repeated the words, "Miggie can marry Arthur, but not Nina, no--no!"

Edith blushed painfully, and averted her eyes, while Arthur continued:

"During Mr. Bernard's stay in Richmond he was attacked with that loathsome disease the small pox, and deserted by all his friends, was in a most deplorable condition, when I, who had had the varioloid, begged and obtained permission to nurse him, which I did as well as I was able, staying by him until the danger was over. How far I was instrumental to his recovery I cannot say. He professed to think I saved his life, and was profuse in his protestations of grat.i.tude. He was very impulsive and conceived for me a friends.h.i.+p which ended only with his death. At all events he proved as much by the great trust eventually reposed in me,"

and he nodded toward Nina, who having tired of the b.u.t.tons and the chain, was busy now with the bunch of keys she had purloined from his pocket.

"I was in delicate health," said Arthur, "and as the cold weather was coming on, he insisted upon taking me home with him, and I accordingly accompanied him to Florida--to Sunny-bank, his country seat. It was a grand old place, shaded by magnolias and surrounded by a profusion of vines and flowering shrubs, but the most beautiful flower of all was NINA, then eleven years age."

Nina knew that he was praising her--that Edith sanctioned the praise, and with the same feeling the little child experiences when told that it is good, she smiled upon Arthur, who, smoothing her round white check, went on:

"My sweet Florida rose, I called her, and many a romping frolic we had together during the winter months, and many a serious talk, too, we had of her second mother; her own she did not remember, and of her sister Miggie whose grave we often visited, strewing it with flowers and watering it with tears, for Nina's attention for her lost sister was so touching that I often wept with her over Miggie's grave."