Darkness and Daylight - Mary J. Holmes (great novels of all time .txt) 📗

Swedish maiden was the girl who jilted Richard Harrington, and hence his love for Eloise, for she knew he did love her from his manner when speaking of her and the pains he had taken to find her. He had not answered her last question yet, for he did not understand its drift, and when at last he spoke he said,

“Mrs. Temple esteemed me highly, I believe; and I admired her very much. She had the sweetest voice I ever heard, not even excepting yours, which is something like it.”

Edith nodded to the bright face on the mirror opposite, and the bright face nodded back as much was to say, “I knew ‘twas so.”

“Was she really handsome, this Mrs. Temple?” she asked, anxious to know how Richard Harrington’s early love had looked.

Instinctively the hands of the blind man met together round Edith’s graceful neck, as he told her how beautiful that Swedish mother was, with her glossy, raven hair, and her large, soft, lustrous eyes, and as he talked, there crept into Edith’s heart a strange, inexplicable affection for that fair young Swede, who Richard said was not as happy with her father-husband as she should have been, and who, emigrating to another land, had died of a homesick, broken heart.

“I am sorry I cursed her to-day,” thought Edith, her tears falling fast to the memory of the lonely, homesick woman, the mother of Eloise.

“Had she married Richard,” she thought, “he would not now be sitting here in his blindness, for SHE would be with him, and Eloise, too, or some one very much like her. I wish she were here now,” and after a moment she asked why he had not brought the maiden home with him. “I should love her as much as my sister,” she said; “and you’d be happier with two of us, wouldn’t you?”

“No,” he answered; “one young girl is enough for any house. I couldn’t endure two.”

“Then I ought to go away,” said Edith promptly, her bosom swelling with a dread lest she should eventually have to go. “Eloise has certainly the best right here. You loved her mother, yon know, and you’d rather have her than me, wouldn’t you?”

She held both his hands now within her own. She bent her face upon them, and he felt her tears trickling through his fingers. Surely he was not to blame if, forgetting himself for the moment, he wound his arms about her and hugging her to his bosom, told her that of all the world SHE was the one he most wanted there at Collingwood, there just where she was now, her head upon his shoulder, her cheek against his own. 0nce she felt slightly startled, his words were so fraught with tender passion, but regarding him as her father, or at least her elder brother, she could not believe he intended addressing her save as his sister or his child, and releasing herself from his embrace, she slid back upon her stool and said, “I’m glad you’re willing I should stay. It would kill me to go from Collingwood now. I’ve been so happy here, and found in you so kind a FATHER.”

She WOULD say that last word, and she did, never observing that Richard frowned slightly as if it were to him an unwelcome sound.

Presently Edith went on, “I think, though, this Eloise ought to come, too, no matter how pleasant a home she has. It is her duty to care for you who lost your sight for her. Were I in her place, I should consider no sacrifice too great to atone for the past. I would do everything in the world you asked of me, and then not half repay you.”

“Every thing, Edith? Did you say every thing?” and it would seem that the blind eyes had for once torn away their veil, so lovingly and wistfully they rested upon the bowed head of the young girl, who, without looking up, answered back,

“Yes, every thing. But I’m glad I am not this Eloise.”

“Why, Edith, why?” and the voice which asked the question was mournful in its tone.

“Because,” returned Edith, “I should not care to be under so great obligations to any one. The burden would be oppressive. I should be all the while wondering what more I could do, while you, too, would be afraid that the little kindnesses which now are prompted in a great measure by love would be rendered from a sense of gratitude and duty. Wouldn’t it be so, Mr. Richard?”

“Yes, yes,” he whispered. “You are right. I should be jealous that what my heart craved as love would be only gratitude. I am glad you suggested this, Edith; very, very, glad, and now let us talk no more of Eloise.”

“Ah, but I must,” cried Edith. “There are so many things I want to know, and you’ve really told me nothing. Had she brothers or sisters? Tell me that, please.”

“There was a half sister, I believe, hut she is dead,” said Richard. “They are all dead but this girl. She is alive and happy, and sometime I will tell you more of her, but not now. I am sorry I told you what I have.”

“So am I if I can’t hear the whole,” returned Edith, beginning to pout.

“I DID intend to tell you all when I began,” said Richard, “but I’ve changed my mind, and Edith, I have faith to believe you will not repeat to any one our conversation. Neither must you tease me about this girl. It is not altogether an agreeable subject.”

Edith saw that he was in earnest, and knowing how useless it would be to question him further, turned her back upon him and gazing steadily into the fire, was wondering what made him so queer, when by way of diverting her mind, he said, “Did Victor tell you that Mr. St. Claire came with us all the way from New York?”

“Mr. St. Claire, no,” and Edith brightened at once, forgetting all about Eloise Temple. “Why then didn’t Mrs. Atherton and I see him? We went over the house this afternoon. It’s a splendid place, most as handsome us Collingwood.”

“How would you like to live there?” asked Richard, playfully. “One of the proposed conditions on which I consented to receive you, was that when Mr. St. Claire had a home of his own he was to take you off my hands; at least, that was what he said, standing here where you sit; and on my way from New York he reminded me of it, inquiring for little Metaphysics, and asking if I were ready to part with her.”

“Do you wish me to go and let Eloise come?” Edith asked, pettishly, and Richard replied,

“No, Edith, I need you more than Arthur ever can, and you’ll stay with me, too, stay always, won’t you? Promise that you will.”

“Of course I shall,” she answered. “I’ll stay until I’m married, as I suppose I shall he sometime; everybody is.”

Richard tried to be satisfied with this reply, but it grated harshly, and it seemed to him that a shadow deeper, darker than any he had ever known, was creeping slowly over him, and that Arthur St. Claire’s was the presence which brought the threatening cloud. He knew this half jealous feeling was unworthy of him, and with a mighty effort he shook it off and saying to Edith, calmly, “Mr. St. Claire asked many questions concerning you and your attainments, and when I spoke of your passion for drawing, lamenting that since Miss Chapin’s departure, there was in town no competent instructor, he offered to be your teacher, provided you would come up there twice a week. He is a very sensible young man, for when I hesitated he guessed at once that I was revolving the propriety of your going alone to the house of a bachelor, where there were no females except the servants, and he said to me ‘You can come with her, if you like.’”

“So it’s more proper for a young lady to be with two gentlemen than with one, is it?” and Edith laughed merrily, at the same time asking if Richard had accepted the offer.

“I did, provided it met your approbation,” was the reply, and as Victor just then appeared, the conversation for the present ceased.

But neither Eloise nor Arthur left the minds of either Richard or Edith, and while in her sleep that night the latter dreamed of the gentle Eloise, who called her sister, and from whom Arthur St. Claire strove to part her, the former tossed restlessly upon his pillow, moaning to himself, “I am glad I did not tell her. She must answer me for love and not for gratitude.”

 

CHAPTER XI.

MATTERS AT GRASSY SPRING.

 

The next morning as the family at Collingwood sat at their rather late breakfast a note was brought to Richard, who immediately handed it to Edith. Breaking the seal, and glancing at the name at the end, she exclaimed, “It’s from Mr. St. Claire, and he says,— let me see:

GRASSY SPRING, Oct. 18—

“Dear Sir:—A wholly unexpected event makes it necessary for me to be absent from home for the next few weeks. During this time my house will be shut up, and I shall be very glad if in her daily rides Miss Hastings will occasionally come round this way and see that everything is straight. I would like much to give the keys into her charge, knowing as I do that I can trust her. The books in my library are at her disposal, as is also the portfolio of drawings, which I will leave upon the writing table.

“When I return, and have become somewhat domesticated, I hope to have her for my pupil, as proposed yesterday. Please let me know at once if she is willing to take charge of my keys.

In haste,

ARTHUR ST. CLAIRE.”

“What does he mean?” asked Edith, as she finished reading this note aloud. “What does he wish me to do?”

“Why,” returned Richard, “He is to shut up his house, which, being brick, will naturally become damp, and I suppose he wishes you to air it occasionally, by opening the windows and letting in the sunlight.

“Wishes me, in short, to perform a servant’s duty,” said Edith, haughtily. “Very well, I’ll do it. Perhaps it will pay my TUITION in part; who knows?” and in spite of Richard’s remonstrances, she seized a pen and dashed off the following:

“Mr. St. Claire:

“Dear Sir,—Miss Hastings accepts the great honor of looking after your house, and will see that nothing gets mouldy during your absence.”

In haste, RICHARD HARRINGTON, “Per Edith Hastings.”

“P.S. Will you have her CLEAN it before you return?”

“Edith!” and Richard’s voice was very stern. “Arthur St. Claire never intended to insult you and you shall NOT send that note. Tear it up at once.”

Edith stood a moment irresolute, while her eyes flashed with indignation, but she had been too long accustomed to obey the man, who, groping his way to her side, stood commandingly before her to resist his authority now, and mechanically tearing the note in pieces, she tossed them into the fire.

“Victor,” said Richard, wishing to spare Edith the mortification of writing a second answer, “tell the man from Grassy Spring that Mr. St. Claire can leave his keys at Collingwood.”

Victor departed with the message, and Edith, somewhat recovered from her pet, said,

“Isn’t it queer, though, that Mr. St. Claire should ask to leave his keys with me? One would suppose he’d trust his cousin to rummage his goods and chattels sooner than a stranger.”

“He has his reasons, I dare say, for preferring you,” returned Richard, adding that he himself would go with her some day