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

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 assembled 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 buttons, and his fingers, apparently oblivious to what was passing 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 Grassy 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 buttons, 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 buttons.

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 finishing his remarks concerning he with, ‘But you can’t have her, boy. Nobody 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 gratitude. He was very impulsive and conceived for me a friendship 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 buttons 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 Sunnybank, 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.”

“Miggie ISN’T dead,” said Nina. “She’s here, ain’t you Miggie?” and she nestled closer to Edith, who was growing strangely interested in that old house, shaded with magnolias, and in the grave of that little child.

“I came home in the spring,” said Arthur, going on with the story Nina had interrupted, “but I kept up a boyish correspondence with Nina, though my affection for her gradually weakened. After becoming a pupil in Geneva Academy, I was exceedingly ambitious, and to stand first in my class occupied more of my thoughts than Nina Bernard. Still, when immediately after I entered Geneva College as a sophomore, I learned that her father intended sending her to the seminary in that village, I was glad, and when I saw her again all my old affection for her returned with tenfold vigor, and the ardor of my passion was greatly increased from the fact that other youths of my age worshipped her too, toasting the Florida rose, and quoting her on all occasions. GRISWOLD was one of these. Dr. Griswold. How deep his feelings were, I cannot tell. I only know that he has never married, and he is three years older than myself. We were room-mates in college, and when he saw that Nina’s preference was for me, he acted the part of a noble, disinterested friend. Few know Griswold as he is.”

Arthur paused, and Edith fancied he was living over the past when Nina was not as she was now, but alas, he was thinking what to tell her next. Up to this point he had narrated the facts just as they had occurred, but he could do so no longer. He must leave out now—evade, go round the truth, and it was hard for him to do so.

“We were engaged,” he began at last. “I was eighteen, she fifteen. But she looked quite as old as she does now. Indeed, she was almost as far in advance of her years as she is now behind them. Still we had no idea of marriage until I had been graduated, although Nina’s confidential friend, who was quite romantic, suggested that we should run away. But from this I shrank as a most foolish act, which, if divulged, would result in my being expelled, and this disgrace I could not endure. In order, however, to make the matter sure, I wrote to her father, asking for his daughter when I became of age. Very impatiently I waited for his answer, which, when it came, was a positive refusal, yet couched in language so kind that none save a fool would have been angry.

“‘Nina could not marry,’ he said, ‘and I must break the engagement at once. Sometime he would tell me why, but not then—not till I was older.’”

Accompanying this was a note to Nina, in which he used rather severer terms, forbidding her to think of marriage, and telling her he was coming immediately to take her to Europe, whither he had long contemplated going.

There was another pause, and a long blank was made in the story,