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

her, and many an hour had she whiled away upon the broken rocks, watching the flecks of sunlight as they came struggling down through the overhanging trees, listening to the plaintive murmur of the stream, or gazing with delight upon the fringed, feathery falls which hung from the heights above like some long, white, gauzy ribbon. Richard, on the contrary, had never visited them before, and he only consented to do so now from a desire to gratify Edith, who acted as his escort in place of Victor. Holding fast to her hand he slowly descended the winding steps and circuitous paths, and then, with a sad feeling of helpless dependence, sat down upon the bank where Edith bade him sit, herself going off in girlish ecstasies as a thin spray fell upon her face and she saw above her a bright-hued rainbow, spanning the abyss.

“They are letting the water on,” she cried, “Look, Richard! do look!” and she grasped his hand, while he said to her mournfully,

“Has Birdie forgotten that I am blind, and helpless, and old—that she must lead me as a child?”

There was a touching pathos in his voice which went straight to Edith’s heart, and forgetting the rainbow, she eat down beside him, still keeping his hand in hers, and asked what was the matter? She knew he was unusually disturbed, for seldom had she seen upon his face a look of so great disquiet. Suddenly as she remembered his unwillingness to come there alone, it flashed upon her that it might arise from an aversion to seem so dependent upon a weak girl in the presence of curious strangers. With Victor he did not mind it, but with her it might be different, and she asked if it were not so.

“Hardly that, darling; hardly that;” and the sightless eyes drooped as if heavy with unshed tears. “Edith,” and he pressed the warm hand he held, “ours will be an unnatural alliance. I needed only to mingle with the world to find it so. People wonder at your choice—wonder that one so young as you should choose a battered, blasted tree like me round which to twine the tendrils of your green, fresh life.”

“What have you heard?” Edith asked, half bitterly, for since their engagement was known at the hotel, she had more than once suspected the truth of what he said to her. The world did not approve, but she would not tell Richard that she knew it, and she asked again what he had heard.

“The ear of the blind is quick,” he replied; “and as I sat waiting in the stage this morning I heard myself denounced as a ‘blind old Hunks,’ a selfish dog, who had won the handsomest girl in the country. Then, as we were descending to this ravine you remember we stopped at the foot of some stairs while you removed a brier from your dress, and from a group near by I heard the whispered words, ‘There they come—the old blind man, who bought his ward with money and gratitude. ‘Twas a horrid sacrifice! Look how beautiful she is!’ Darling, I liked to hear you praised, but did not like the rest. It makes me feel as if I were dragging you to the altar against your will. And what is worse than all, the verdict of the people here is the verdict of the world. Edith, you don’t want me. You cannot wish to call one husband whose dependence upon you will always make you blush for your choice. It was gratitude alone which prompted your decision. Confess that it was, and I give you back your troth. You need not be the old blind man’s wife.”

For an instant Edith’s heart leaped up, and the sun spots dancing on the leaves were brighter than she had ever seen them, but the feeling passed away, and laying both her hands reverently in Richard’s, she said,

“I will be your wife. I care nothing for the world, and we won’t mingle in it any more to cause remarks. We’ll stay at Collingwood, where people know us best. Let’s go home to-morrow. I’m tired of this hateful place. Will you go?”

Ere Richard could answer, Grace Atherton was heard exclaiming,

“Ah, here you are, I’ve hunted everywhere. Mr. Russell,” and she turned to the dark man at her side, “this is Mr. Harrington—Miss Hastings—Mr. Russell, from Tallahassee.” Edith did not at first think that Tallahassee was in Florida, not many miles from Sunnybank, and she bowed to the gentleman as to any stranger, while Grace, who had just arrived in another omnibus, explained to her that Mr. Russell was a slight acquaintance of Arthur’s; that the latter being in town, and accidentally hearing that he was coming North, had intrusted him with some business matters, which would require his visiting Grassy Spring—had given him a letter of introduction to herself, said letter containing a note for Edith—that Mr. Russell had been to Shannondale, and ascertaining their whereabouts, had followed them, reaching the Mountain House in the morning stage.

“He can spend but one day here,” she added, in conclusion, “and wishing him to see as much as possible of our northern grandeur I brought him at once to the Falls. Here is your note,” and tossing it into Edith’s lap she moved away.

A note from Arthur! How Edith trembled as she held it in her hand, and with a quick, furtive glance at sightless eyes beside her, she raised the dainty missive to her lips, feeling a reproachful pang as she reflected that she was breaking her vow to Richard. Why had Arthur written to her—she asked herself this question many times, while Richard, too, asked,

“What news from Florida?” ere she broke the seal and read, not words of changeless and dark despair, but words of entreaty that for the sake of Nina, sick, dying Nina, she would come at once to Florida, for so the crazy girl had willed it, pleading with them the livelong day to send for Miggie, precious Miggie, with the bright, black eyes, which looked her into subjection, and the soft hands which drove the ugly pain away.

“All the summer,” Arthur wrote, “she has been failing. The heat seems to oppress her, and several times I’ve been on the point of returning with her to the North, thinking I made a mistake in bringing her here, but she refuses to leave Sunnybank. Old sights and familiar places have a soothing effect upon her, and she is more as she used to be before the great calamity fell upon her. Her disease is consumption, hereditary like her insanity, and as her physical powers diminish her mental faculties seem to increase. The past is not wholly a blank to her now; she remembers distinctly much that has gone by, but of nothing does she talk so constantly as of Miggie, asking every hour if I’ve sent for you— how long before you’ll come; and if you’ll stay until she’s dead. I think your coming will prolong her life; and you will never regret it, I am sure. Mr. Russell will be your escort, as he will return in three weeks.”

To this note two postscripts were appended—the first in a girlish, uneven hand, was redolent of the boy Arthur’s “Florida rose.”

“Miggie, precious Miggie—come to Sunnybank; come to Nina. She is waiting for you. She wants you here—wants to lay her poor, empty head, where the bad pain used to be, on your soft, nice bosom—to shut her eyes and know it is your breath she feels—your sweet, fragrant breath, and not Arthur’s, brim full of cigar smoke. Do come, Miggie, won’t you? There’s a heap of things I want to fix before I die, and I am dying, Miggie. I see it in my hands, so poor and thin, not one bit like they used to be, and I see it, too, in Arthur’s actions. Dear Arthur boy! He is so good to me— carries me every morning to the window, and holds me in his lap while I look out into the garden where we used to play, you and I. I think it was you, but my brain gets so twisted, and I know the real Miggie is out under the magnolias, for it says so on the stone, but I can’t help thinking you are she. Arthur has a new name for me, a real nice name, too. He took it from a book, he says—about just such a wee little girl as I am. ‘Child-wife,’ that’s what he calls me, and he strokes my hair so nice. I’m loving Arthur a heap, Miggie. It seems just as if he was my mother, and the name ‘Child-wife’ makes little bits of waves run all over me. He’s a good boy, and God will pay him by and by for what he’s been to me. Some folks here call me Mrs. St. Claire. Why do they? Sometimes I remember something about somebody somewhere, more than a hundred years ago, but just as I think I’ve got hold of it right, it goes away. I lose it entirely, and my head is so snarled up. Come and unsnarl it, wont you? Nina is sick, Nina is dying, Nina is crazy. You must come.”

The second postscript showed a bolder, firmer hand, and Edith read,

“I, too, echo Nina’s words, ‘Come, Miggie, come.’ Nina wants you, and I—Heaven only knows how much I want you—but, Edith, were you in verity Richard’s wife, you could not be more sacred to me than you are as his betrothed, and I promise solemnly that I will not seek to influence your decision. The time is surely coming when I shall be alone; no gentle Nina, sweet ‘Child-wife’ clinging to me. She will be gone, and her Arthur boy, as she calls me, free to love whomsoever he will. But this shall make no difference. I have given you to Richard. I will not wrong the blind man. Heaven bless you both and bring you to us.”

The sun shone just as brightly in the summer sky—the Kauterskill fell as softly into the deep ravine—the shouts of the tourists were just us gay—the flecks of sunshine on the grass danced just as merrily, but Edith did not heed them. Her thoughts were riveted upon the lines she had read, and her heart throbbed with an unutterable desire to respond at once to that pleading call—to take to herself wings and fly away—away over mountain and valley, river and rill, to the fair land of flowers where Nina was, and where too was Arthur. As she read, she uttered no sound, but when at last Richard said to her,

“What is it, Birdie? Have you heard bad news?” her tears flowed at once, and leaning her head upon his shoulder, she answered,

“Nina is dying—dear little, bright-haired Nina. She has sent for me. She wants me to come so much. May I, Richard? May I go to Nina?”

“Read me the letter,” was Richard’s reply, his voice unusually low and sad.

Edith could not read the whole. Arthur’s postscript must be omitted, as well as a portion of Nina’s, but she did the best she could, breaking down entirely when she reached the point where Nina spoke of her Arthur boy’s goodness in carrying her to the window.

Richard, too, was much affected, and his voice trembled as he said, “St. Claire is a noble fellow. I always felt strangely drawn toward him. Isn’t there something between him and Nina—something more than mere guardianship?”

“They were engaged before she was crazy,” returned Edith, while Richard sighed, “poor boy, poor boy! It must be worse than death. His darkness is greater than mine.”

Then his thoughts came back to Edith’s question, “May I go to Nina?” and his first feeling was that she