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

within the hall and was met by Grace, who uttered an exclamation of surprise at seeing him so changed.

“I am very tired,” he said, with the tone and air of an invalid, “Let me rest in the library awhile, before I see the negroes. Their noise will disturb me,” and he walked into the very room where Edith stood waiting for him.

She had intended to meet him as a brother, the husband of her sister, but the sight of his white, suffering face swept her calmness all away, and with a burst of tears she cried, “Oh, Arthur, Arthur, I did not think you had been so sick. Why did you not let us know; I would have come to you,” and she brought herself the arm-chair which he took, smiling faintly upon her and saying,

“It was bad business being sick at a hotel, and I did sometimes wish you were there, but of course I could not expect you to leave your husband. How is he?”

Edith could hear the beating of her heart and feel the blood tingling her cheeks as she replied, “You mean Richard, but he is not my husband. He—”

Quickly, eagerly Arthur looked up, the expression of his face speaking volumes of joy, surprise, and even hope, but all this faded away, leaving him paler, sicker-looking than before, as Edith continued,

“The marriage was a second time deferred on account of Nina’s death. It will take place in June.”

Grace had left the room and an awkward silence ensued during which Arthur looked absently into the fire, while Edith gazed out upon the darkening sky, wondering if life would always be as hard to bear as now, and half wishing that Arthur St. Claire had staid at Sunnybank until the worst was over.

There was a sound of wheels outside, and Edith heard Richard as he passed into the hall. He had received her message, and thinking it proper for him to welcome Mr. St. Claire, he had come to Grassy Spring to do so, as well as to escort Edith home. Richard could not see how much Arthur was changed, but his quick ear detected the weak, tremulous tones of the voice, which tried to greet him steadily, and so the conversation turned first upon Arthur’s recent illness, and then upon Nina, until at last, as Richard rose to leave, he laid his arm across Edith’s shoulder and said playfully, “You know of course, that what you predicted, when years ago you asked me to take a certain little girl, is coming true. Edith has promised to be my wife. You will surely remain at Grassy Spring through the summer, and so be present at our wedding on the 15th of June. I invite you now.”

“Thank you,” was all Arthur could say, as with his accustomed politeness he arose to bid his guests good night; but his lip quivered as he said it, and his eye never for a moment rested upon Edith, who led Richard in silence to the carriage, feeling that all she loved in the wide world was left there in the little library where the light was shining, and where, although she did not know it, Grace was ministering to the half fainting Arthur.

The sight of Edith and Richard had effected him more than he supposed it would, but the worst was over now, and as he daily grew stronger in the bracing northern air he felt more and more competent to meet what lay before him.

 

CHAPTER XXXIV.

NINA’S LETTER.

 

After a week or two had passed, Arthur went occasionally to Collingwood, where Richard greeted him most cordially, urging him to come more frequently and wondering why he always seemed in so much haste to get away. On the occasion of these visits Edith usually kept out of the way, avoiding him so studiously that Richard began to fear she might perhaps dislike him, and he resolved to ask her the first good opportunity. But Edith avoided him, too, never coming now to sit with him alone; somebody must always be present when she was with him, else had her bursting heart betrayed the secret telling so fearfully upon her. Oh, how hateful to her were the preparations for her bridal, which had commenced on a most magnificent scale, for Richard, after waiting so long, would have a grand wedding, and that all who chose might witness the ceremony, it was to be performed in the church, from which the guests would accompany him back to Collingwood.

All Shannondale was interested, and the most extravagant stories were set afloat, not only concerning the trouseau of the bride, but the bride herself. What ailed her? What made her so cold, so white, so proudly reserved, so like a walking ghost? She, who had been so full of vigorous life, so merry, so light-hearted. Could it be the mourning for sweet little Nina, or was it—?

And here the knot of gossippers, at the corner of the streets, or in the stores, or in the parlors at home, would draw more closely together as they whispered,

“Does she love Richard Harrington as she ought? Is not her heart given rather to the younger, handsomer St. Claire?”

How they pitied her if it were so, and how curiously they watched her whenever she appeared in their midst, remarking every action, and construing it according to their convictions.

Victor, too, was on the alert, and fully aware of the public feeling. Day after day he watched his young mistress, following her when she left the house alone, and seeing her more than once when in the Deering woods she laid her face in the springing grass and prayed that she might die. But for her promise, sworn to Richard, she would have gone to him, and kneeling at his feet begged him to release her from her vow, and so spare her the dreadful trial from which she shrank more and more as she saw it fast approaching.

Edith was almost crazy, and Arthur, whenever he chanced to meet her, marvelled at the change since he saw her last. Once he, too, thought of appealing to Richard to save her from so sad a fate as that of an unloving wife, but he would not interfere, lest by so doing he should err again, and so in dreary despair, which each day grew blacker and more hopeless, Edith was left alone, until Victor roused in her behalf, and without allowing himself time to reflect, sought his master’s presence, bearing with him Nina’s letter, and the soiled sheet on which Richard had unwittingly scratched out Arthur’s marriage.

It was a warm, balmy afternoon, and through the open windows of the library, the south wind came stealing in, laden with the perfume of the pink-tinted apple blossoms, and speaking to the blind man of the long ago, when it was his to see the budding beauties now shut out from his sight. The hum of the honey-bee was heard, and the air was rife with the sweet sounds of later spring. On the branch of a tree without, a robin was trilling a song. It had sung there all the morning, and now it had come back again, singing a second time to Richard, who thought of the soft nest up in the old maple, and likened that robin and its mate to himself and Edith, his own singing-bird.

But why linger so long over that May-day which Richard remembered through many, many future years, growing faint and sick as often as the spring brought back the apple-blossom perfume or the song of mated robins. It is, alas, that we shrink as Victor did from the task imposed, that, like him, we dread the blow which will strike at the root of Richard’s very life, and we approach tearfully, pityingly, half remorsefully, as we stand sometimes by a sunken grave, doubting whether our conduct to the dead were always right and just. So Victor felt, as he drew near to Richard; and sitting down beside him said,

“Can I talk with you awhile about Miss Hastings?” Richard started. Victor had come to tell him she was sick, and he asked if it were not so.

“Something has ailed her of late,” he said.

“She is greatly changed since Nina’s death. She mourns much for her sister.”

“Yes,” returned Victor, “she loved Nina dearly, but it is more than this which ails her. God forbid that I should unnecessarily wound you, Mr. Harrington, but I think it right for you to know.”

The dark face, shaded with the long beard, was very white now, and the sightless eyes had in them a look of terror as Richard asked,

“What is it, Victor? Tell me.”

“Come to the sofa first,” Victor rejoined, feeling intuitively that he was safer there than in that high arm-chair, and with unusual tenderness he led his master to the spot, then sitting down beside him, he continued, “Do you remember Nina once made you write something upon a sheet of paper, and that you bade me ascertain what it was?”

“Yes, I remember,” answered Richard, “you told me you had not read it, and imputing it to some crazy fancy of no importance, I gave it no more thought. What of it, Victor?”

“I had not read it then,” answered Victor, “but I have done so since, I have it in my possession—here in my hand. Would you like to hear it?”

Richard nodded, and Victor read aloud: “I, the blind man, Richard Harrington, do hereby solemnly swear that the marriage of Arthur St. Claire and Nina Bernard, performed by me and at my house, is null and void,”

“What! Read it again! It cannot be that I heard aright,” and Richard listened while Victor repeated the lines. “Arthur and Nina! Was she the young girl wife, he, the boy husband, who came to me that night?” Richard exclaimed. “Why have I never known of this before? Why did Edith keep it from me? Say, Victor,” and again Richard listened, this time, oh, how eagerly, while Victor told him what he knew of that fatal marriage, kept so long a secret, and as he listened, the beaded drops stood thickly upon his forehead and gathered around his ashen lips, for Victor purposely let fall a note of warning which shot through the quivering nerves of the blind man like a barbed burning arrow, wringing from him the piteous cry,

“Oh, Victor, Victor, does she—does Edith love Arthur? Has she loved him all the time? Is it this which makes her voice so sad, her step so slow? Speak—better that I know it now than after ‘tis too late. What other paper is it you are unfolding?”

“‘Tis a letter from Nina to you. Can you hear it now?”

“Yes, but tell me first all you know. Don’t withhold a single thing. I would hear the whole.”

So Victor told him what he knew up to the time of their going to Florida; and then, opening Nina’s letter, he began to read, pausing, occasionally, to ask if he should stop.

“No, no; go on!” Richard whispered, hoarsely, his head dropping lower and lower, until the face was hidden from view and the chin rested upon the chest, which heaved with every labored breath.

Once at the words, “When you hear this Nina’ll be there with you. She’ll sit upon your knee and wind her arms around your neck”—he started, and seemed to be thrusting something from his lap— something which made him shiver. Was it Nina? He thought so, and strove to push her off but when Victor read, “She will comfort you when the great cry comes in—the crash like the breaking up of the ice in the Northern ponds,” he ceased to struggle, and Victor involuntarily stopped when he saw the long arms