Darkness and Daylight Part 32

"You cannot, you must not, you shall not. It will kill him if I desert him. He told me so, and I promised that I wouldn't-- promised solemnly. I would not harm a hair of Richard's head, and he so n.o.ble, so good, so helpless, with so few sources of enjoyment; but oh, Victor, I did love Arthur best--did love him so much," and in that wailing cry Edith's true sentiments spoke out.

"I did love him so much--I love him so much now," and she kept whispering it to herself, while Victor sought in vain for some word of comfort, but could find none. Once he said to her, "Wait, and Nina may die," but Edith recoiled from him in horror.

"Never hint that Again," she almost screamed. "It's murder, foul murder. I would not have Nina die for the whole world--beautiful, loving Nina. I wouldn't have Arthur, if she did. I couldn't, for I am Richard's wife. I wish I'd told him early June instead of October. I'll tell him to-morrow and in four weeks more all the dreadful uncertainty will be ended. I ought to love him, Victor, he's done so much for me. I am that Swedish child he saved from the river Rhine, periling life and limb, losing his sight for me.

He found it so that time he went with you to New York," and Edith's tears ceased as she repeated to Victor all she knew of her early history. "Shouldn't I marry him?" she asked, when the story was ended. "Ought I not to be his eyes? Help me, Victor. Don't make it so hard for me; I shall faint by the way if you do."

Victor conceded that she owed much to Richard, but nothing could make him think it right for her to marry him with her present feelings. It would be a greater wrong to him than to refuse him, but Edith did not think so.

"He'll never know what I feel," she said, and by and by I shall be better,--shall love him as he deserves. There are few Richards in the world, Victor."

"That is true," he replied, "but 'tis no reason why you must be sacrificed. Edith, the case is like this: I wish, and the world at large, if it could speak, would wish for Richard to marry you, but would not wish you to marry Richard."

"But I shall," interrupted Edith. "There is no possible chance of my not doing so, and Victor, you will help me.--You won't tell him of Arthur. You know how his unselfish heart would give me up if you did, and break while doing it. Promise, Victor."

"Tell me first what you meant by early June, and October," he said, and after Edith had explained, he continued, "Let the wedding be still appointed for October, and unless I see that it is absolutely killing you, I will not enlighten Mr. Harrington."

And this was all the promise Edith could extort from him.

"Unless he saw it was absolutely killing her, he would not enlighten Richard."

"He shall see that it will not kill me," she said to herself, "I will be gay whether I feel it or not. I will out-do myself, and if my broken heart should break again, no one shall be the wiser."

Thus deciding, she turned toward the window where the gray dawn was stealing in, and pointing to it, said:

"Look, the day is breaking; the longest night will have an end, so will this miserable pain at my heart. Daylight will surely come when I shall be happy with Richard. Don't tell him, Victor, don't; and now leave me, for my head is bursting with weariness."

He knew it was, by the expression of her face, which, in the dim lamp-light, looked ghastly and worn, and he was about to leave her, when she called him back, and asked how long he had lived with Mr. Harrington.

"Thirteen years," he replied. "He picked me up in Germany, just before he came home to America. He was not blind then."

"Then you never saw my mother?"

"Never."

"Nor Marie?"

"Never to my knowledge,"

"You were in Geneva with Richard, you say. Where were you, when-- when--"

Edith could not finish, but Victor understood what she would ask, and answered her,

"I must have been in Paris. I went home for a few months, ten years ago last fall, and did not return until just before we came to Collingwood. The housekeeper told me there had been a wedding at Lake View, our Geneva home, but I did not ask the particulars.

There's a moral there, Edith; a warning to all foolish college boys, and girls, who don't half know their minds."

Edith was too intent upon her own matters to care for morals, and without replying directly, she said,

"Richard will tell you to-morrow or to-day, rather, of the engagement, and you'll be guarded, won't you?"

"I shall let him know I disapprove," returned Victor, "but I shan't say anything that sounds like Arthur St. Claire, not yet, at all events."

"And, Victor, in the course of the day, you'll make some errand to Brier Hill, and incidentally mention it to Mrs. Atherton. Richard won't tell her, I know, and I can't--I can't. Oh, I wish it were-- "

"The widow, instead of you," interrupted Victor, as he stood with the door k.n.o.b in his hand. "That's what you mean, and I must say it shows a very proper frame of mind in a bride-elect."

Edith made a gesture for him to leave her, and with a low bow he withdrew, while Edith, alternately s.h.i.+vering with cold and flushed with fever, crept into bed, and fell away to sleep, forgetting, for the time, that there were in the world such things as broken hearts, unwilling brides, and blind husbands old enough to be her father.

The breakfast dishes were cleared away, all but the exquisite little service brought for Edith's use when she was sick, and which now stood upon the side-board waiting until her long morning slumber should end. Once Mrs. Matson had been to her bedside, hearing from her that her head was aching badly, and that she would sleep longer. This message was carried down to Richard, who entertained his guests as best he could, but did not urge them to make a longer stay.

They were gone now, and Richard was alone. It was a favorable opportunity for telling Victor of his engagement, and summoning the latter to his presence, he bade him sit down, himself hesitating, stammering and blus.h.i.+ng like a woman, as he tried to speak of Edith. Victor might have helped him, but he would not, as he sat, rather enjoying his master's confusion, until the latter said, abruptly,

"Victor, how would you like to have a mistress here--a bona fide one, I mean, such as my wife would be?"

"That depends something upon who it was," Victor exclaimed, as if this were the first intimation he had received of it.

"What would you say to Edith?" Richard continued, and Victor replied with well-feigned surprise, "Miss Hastings! You would not ask that little girl to be your wife! Why you are twenty-five years her senior."

"No, no, Victor, only twenty-one," and Richard's voice trembled, for like Edith, he wished to be rea.s.sured and upheld even by his inferiors.

He knew Victor disapproved, that he considered it a great sacrifice on Edith's part, but for this he had no intention of giving her up. On the contrary it made him a very little vexed that his valet should presume to question his acts, and he said with more asperity of manner than was usual for him,

"You think it unsuitable, I perceive, and perhaps it is, but if we are satisfied, it is no one's else business, I think,"

"Certainly not," returned Victor, a meaning smile curling his lip, "if both are satisfied, I ought to be. When is the wedding?"

He asked this last with an appearance of interest, and Richard, ever ready to forgive and forget, told him all about it, who Edith was, and sundry other matters, to which Victor listened as attentively as if he had not heard the whole before. Like Edith, Richard was in the habit of talking to Victor more as if he were an equal than a servant and in speaking of his engagement, he said,

"I had many misgivings as to the propriety of asking Edith to be my wife--she is so young, so different from me, but my excuse is that I cannot live without her. She never loved another, and thus the chance is tenfold that she will yet be to me all that a younger, less dependent husband could desire."

Victor bit his lip, half resolved one moment to undeceive poor Richard, whom he pitied for his blind infatuation, but remembering his promise, he held his peace, until his master signified that the conference was ended, when he hastened to the barn, where he could give vent to his feeling in French, his adopted language being far too prosy to suit his excited mood. Suddenly Grace Atherton came into his mind, and Edith's request that he should tell her.

"Yes, I'll do it," he said, starting at once for Brier Hill "'Twill be a relief to let another know it, and then I want to see her squirm, when she hears all hope for herself is gone."

For once, however, Victor was mistaken. Gradually the hope that she could ever be aught to Richard was dying out of Grace's heart, and though, for an instant, she turned very white when, as if by accident, he told the news, it was more from surprise at Edith's conduct than from any new feeling that she had lost him. She was in the garden bending over a bed of daffodils, so he did not see her face, but he knew from her voice how astonished she was and rather wondered that she could question him so calmly as she did, asking if Edith were very happy, when the wedding was to be, and even wondering at Richard's willingness to wait so long.

"Women are queer any way," was Victor's mental comment, as, balked of his intention to see Grace Atherton squirm, he bade her good morning, and bowed himself from the garden, having first received her message that she would come up in the course of the day, and congratulate the newly betrothed.

Once alone, Grace's calmness all gave way; and though the intelligence did not affect her as it once would have done, the fibres of her heart quivered with pain, and a sense of dreariness stole over her, as, sitting down on the thick, trailing boughs of an evergreen, she covered her face with her hands, and wept as women always weep over a blighted hope. It was all in vain that her pet kitten came gamboling to her feet, rubbing against her dress, climbing upon her shoulder, and playfully touching, with her velvet paw, the chestnut curls which fell from beneath her bonnet. All in vain that the Newfoundland dog came to her side, licking her hands and gazing upon her with a wondering, human look of intelligent. Grace had no thought for Rover or for Kitty, and she wept on, sometimes for Arthur, sometimes for Edith, but oftener for the young girl who years ago refused the love offered her by Richard Harrington; and then she wondered if it were possible that Edith had so soon ceased to care for Arthur,

"I can tell from her manner," she thought; and with her mind thus brought to the call she would make at Collingwood, she dried her eyes, and speaking playfully to her dumb pets, returned to the house a sad, subdued woman, whose part in the drama of Richard Harrington was effectually played out.

That afternoon, about three o'clock, a carriage bearing Grace Atherton, wound slowly up the hill to Collingwood and when it reached the door a radiant, beautiful woman stepped out, her face all wreathed in smiles and her voice full of sweetness as she greeted Richard, who came forth to meet her.

"A pretty march you've stolen upon me," she began, in a light, bantering tone--"you and Edith--never asked my consent or said so much as 'by your leave' but no matter, I congratulate you all the same. I fancied it would end in this. Where is she--the bride- elect?"

Richard was stunned with such a volley of words from one whom he supposed ignorant of the matter, and observing his evident surprise Grace continued, "You wonder how I know, Victor told me this morning; he was too much delighted to keep it to himself. But say, where is Edith?"

"Here I am," and advancing from the parlor, where she had overheard the whole, Edith laughed a gay, musical laugh, as hollow and meaningless as Mrs. Atherton's forced levity.