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

see that the shade was lifted for a single moment, while, standing upon the platform, Richard’s eyes wandered eagerly, greedily over the broad meadow lands and fields of waving grain, over the wooded hills, rich in summer glory, and lastly toward Collingwood, with its roofs and slender tower basking in the July sun.

“Thank God thank God,” he whispered, just as Victor caught his arm, bidding him alight as the train was about to move forward.

“There’s papa, there—right across the track,” and Dick tugged at his father’s coat skirts, trying to make him comprehend, but Arthur had just then neither eyes nor ears for any thing but his sobbing little daughter, whose forehead he kissed tenderly, thereby curing the pain and healing the wounded heart, of his favorite child, his second golden-haired Nina. Dick, however, persevered, until his father understood what he meant, and Nina was in danger of being hurt again, so hastily was she dropped when Arthur learned that Richard had come. There was already a crowd around him, but they made way for Arthur, who was not ashamed to show before them all, how much he loved the noble man, or how glad he was to have him back.

“Richard has grown old,” the spectators said to each other, as they watched him till he entered the carriage.

And so he had. His hair was quite grey now, and the tall figure was somewhat inclined to stoop, while about the mouth were deep-cut lines which even the heavy mustache could not quite conceal. But he would grow young again, and even so soon he felt his earlier manhood coming back as he rode along that pleasant afternoon, past the fields where the newly-mown hay, fresh from a recent shower, sent forth its fragrance upon the summer air, while the song of the mowers mingled with the click of the whetting scythe, made sweet, homelike sounds which he loved to hear. Why did he lean so constantly from the carriage, and why when Victor exclaimed, “The old ruin is there yet,” referring to Grassy Spring did he, too, look across the valley?

Arthur asked himself this question many times, and at last, when they reached Collingwood and Edith had alighted, he bent forward and whispered in Richard’s ear, not an interrogation, but a positive affirmation, which brought back the response,

“Don’t tell her—not yet, I mean.” Arthur turned very white and could scarcely stand as he stepped to the ground, for that answer, had taken his strength away, and Victor led him instead of his master into the house, where the latter was greeted joyfully by the astonished servants.

He seemed very weary and after receiving them all, asked to go to his room where he could rest.

“You will find it wholly unchanged,” Arthur said. “Nothing new but gas.”

“I trust I shall not set the house on fire this time,” was Richard’s playful rejoinder, as he followed Victor up the stairs to the old familiar chamber, where his valet left him alone to breathe out his fervent thanksgivings for the many blessings bestowed on one, who, when last he left that room, had said in his sorrow, there were no sunspots left.

The first coming home he so much dreaded was over now, and had been accompanied with far less pain than he feared. He knew they were glad to have him back—Arthur and his dear sister, as he always called her now. Never since the bridal night had the name Edith passed his lips and if perchance he heard it from others, he shuddered involuntarily. Still the sound of her voice had not hurt him as he thought it would; nothing had been half so hard as he had anticipated, and falling upon his knees, he poured out his soul in prayer, nor heard the steps upon the threshold as Arthur came in, his heart too full to tarry outside longer. Kneeling by Richard, he, too, thanked the Good Father, not so much for his friend’s safe return as for the boon, precious as life itself which had been given to that friend.

When at last their prayers were ended, both involuntarily advanced to the window, where, with his handsome, manly face turned fully to the light, Arthur stood immovable, nor flinched a hair, as Edith would ere long when passing the same ordeal. He did not ask what Richard thought of him, neither did Richard tell, only the remark,

“I do not wonder that she loved you best.”

They then talked together of a plan concerning Edith, after which Arthur left his brother to the repose he so much needed ere joining them in the parlor below. Never before had pillows seemed so soft or bed so grateful as that on which Richard laid him down to rest, and sleep was just touching his heavy eyelids, when upon the door there came a gentle rap, accompanied with the words,

“P’eae, Uncle ‘Ick, let Nina tome. She’s all dressed up so nice.”

That little girl had crept way down into Richard’s heart, just as she did into every body’s, and he admitted her at once, suffering her to climb up beside him, where, with her fat, dimpled hands folded together, she sat talking to him in her sweet baby language,

“‘Ess go to sleep, Nina tired,” she said at last, and folding his arms about her, Richard held her to his bosom as if she had been his own. “‘Tain’t time to say p’ayers, is it?” she asked, fearing lest she should omit her duty; and when Richard inquired what her prayers were, she answered,

“Now I lay me—and God bess Uncle ‘Ick. Mam-ma tell me that.”

Richard’s eyes filled with tears, which the waxen fingers wiped away, and when somewhat later Victor cautiously looked in, he saw them sleeping there together, Nina’s golden head nestled in Richard’s neck, and one of her little hands lain upon his cheek.

Meantime, in Edith’s room Arthur was virtually superintending the making of his wife’s evening toilet, a most unprecedented employment for mankind in general, and him in particular. But for some reason wholly inexplicable to Edith, Arthur was unusually anxious about her personal appearance, suggesting among other things that she should wear a thin pink muslin, which he knew so well became her dark style of beauty; and when she reminded him of its shortcomings with regard to waist and sleeves, he answered playfully,

“That does not matter. ‘Twill make you look girlish and young.”

So Edith donned the pink dress, and clasping upon her neck and arms the delicate ornaments made from Nina’s hair, asked of Arthur, “How she looked.”

“Splendidly,” he replied, “Handsomer even than on our bridal night.”

And Edith was handsomer than on the night when she stood at the altar a bride, for six years of almost perfect happiness had chased away the restless, careworn, sorrowful look which was fast becoming habitual, and now, at twenty-six, Edith St. Claire was pronounced by the world the most strikingly beautiful woman of her age. Poets had sung of her charms, artists had transferred them to canvas; brainless beaux, who would as soon rave about a married woman as a single one, provided it were the fashion so to do, had stamped them upon their hearts; envious females had picked them all to pieces, declaring her too tall, too black, too hoydenish to be even pretty; while little Dick and Nina likened her to the angels, wondering if there were anything in heaven, save Aunt Nina, as beautiful as she. And this was Edith, who when her toilet was completed went down to meet Grace Atherton just arrived and greatly flurried when she heard that Richard had come. Very earnestly the two ladies were talking together when Arthur glanced in for a moment and then hastened up to Richard, whom he found sitting by the window, with Dick and Nina both seated in his lap, the former utterly astounded at the accuracy with which his blind uncle guessed every time how many fingers he held up!

“Father! father!” he screamed, as Arthur came in, “He can see just as good as if he wasn’t blind!” and he looked with childish curiosity into the eyes which had discovered in his infantile features more than one trace of the Swedish Petrea, grandmother to the boy.

Arthur smiled and without replying to his son, said to Richard,

“I have come now to take you to Edith. Grace Atherton is there, too—a wonderfully young and handsome woman for forty-two. I am not sure that you can tell them apart.

“I could tell your wife from all the world,” was Richard’s answer, as putting down the children and resuming the green shade, he went with Arthur to the door of the library, where Grace and Edith, standing with their backs to them were too much engaged to notice that more than Arthur was coming.

Him Edith heard, and turning towards him she was about to speak, when Richard lowered the green shade he had raised for a single moment, and walking up to her took her hand in his. Twining his fingers around her slender wrist he said to her,

“Come with me to the window and sit on a stool at my feet just as you used to do.”

Edith was surprised, and stammered out something about Grace’s being in the room.

“Never mind Mrs. Atherton,” he said, “I will attend to her by and by—my business is now with you,” and he led her to the window, where Arthur had carried a stool.

Like lightning the truth flashed upon Grace, and with a nervous glance at the mirror to see how she herself was looking that afternoon, she stood motionless, while Richard dashing the shade to the floor, said to the startled Edith,

“The blind man would know how Petrea’s daughter looks.”

With a frightened shriek Edith covered up her face, and laying her head in its old resting place, Richard’s lap, exclaimed,

“No, no, oh no, Richard. Please do not look at me now. Help me, Arthur. Don’t let him,” she continued, as she felt the strong hands removing her own by force. But Arthur only replied by lifting up her head himself and holding in his own the struggling hands, while Richard examined a face seen now for the first time since its early babyhood. Oh how scrutinisingly he scanned that face, with its brilliant black eyes, where tears were glittering like diamonds in the sunlight, its rich healthful bloom, its proudly curved lip, its dimpled chin and soft, round cheeks What did he think of it? Did it meet his expectations? Was the face he had known so long in his darkness as Edith’s, natural when seen by daylight? Mingled there no shadow of disappointment in the reality? Was Arthur’s Edith at all like Richard’s singing bird? How Arthur wished he knew. But Richard kept his own counsel, for a time at least. He did not say what he thought of her. He only kissed the lips beginning to quiver with something like a grieved expression that Arthur should hold her so long, kissed them twice, and with his hand wiped her tears away, saying playfully,

“‘Tis too bad, Birdie, I know, but I’ve anticipated this hour so long.”

He had not called her Birdie before, and the familiar name compensated for all the pain which Edith had suffered when she saw those strangely black eyes fastened upon her, and knew that they could see. Springing to her feet the moment, she was released, she jumped into his lap in her old impetuous way, and winding her arms around his neck, sobbed out,

“I am so glad, Richard, so glad. You can’t begin to guess how glad, and I’ve prayed for this every night and every day, Arthur and I. Didn’t we, Arthur? Dear, dear Richard. I love you so much.”

“What he make