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

when he found it gone, and that no amount of searching could bring it to light. He did not notice the empty pail the luckless Edith had left, although he stumbled over it twice in his feverish anxiety to find his treasure. But what he failed to observe was discovered by Grace, whom he summoned to his aid, and who exclaimed:

“Edith Hastings has been here! She must be the thief!”

“Edith, Grace, Edith—it cannot be,” and Arthur’s face indicated plainly the pain it would occasion him to find that it was so.

“I hope you may be right, Arthur, but I have not so much confidence in her as you seem to have. There she is now,” continued Grace, spying her across the yard and calling to her to come.

Blushing, stammering, and cowering like a guilty thing, Edith entered the room, for she heard Arthur’s voice and knew that he was there to witness her humiliation.

“Edith,” said Mrs. Atherton, sternly, “what have you been doing?”

No answer from Edith save an increase of color upon her face, and with her suspicions confirmed, Grace went on,

“What have you in your pocket?”

“‘Taint in my pocket; it’s in my bosom,” answered Edith, drawing it forth and holding it to view.

“How dare you steal it,” asked Grace, and instantly there came into Edith’s eyes the same fiery, savage gleam from which Mrs. Atherton always shrank, and beneath which she now involuntarily quailed.

It had never occurred to Edith that she could be accused of theft, and she stamped at first like a little fury, then throwing herself upon the sofa, sobbed out, “Oh, dear—oh, dear, I wish God would let me die. I don’t want to live any longer in such a mean, nasty world. I want to go to Heaven, where everything is jolly.”

“You are a fit subject for Heaven,” said Mrs. Atherton, scornfully, and instantly the passionate sobbing ceased; the tears were dried in the eyes which blazed with insulted dignity as Edith arose, and looking her mistress steadily in the face, replied,

“I suppose you think I meant to steal and keep the pretty picture, but the one who was in here with me knows I didn’t.”

“Who was that?” interrupted Grace, her color changing visibly at the child’s reverent reply.

“God was with me, and I wish he hadn’t let me touch it, but he did. It lay on the writing desk and I took it to the window to see it. Oh, isn’t she jolly?” and as she recalled the beautiful features, the hard expression left her own, and she went on, “I couldn’t take my eyes from her; they would stay there, and I was almost going to speak her name, when I heard you coming, and ran away. I meant to bring it back, Mr. Arthur,” and she turned appealingly to him. “I certainly did, and you believe me, don’t you? I never told a lie in my life.”

Ere Arthur could reply, Grace chimed in.

“Believe you? Of course not. You stole the picture and intended to keep it. I cannot have you longer in my family, for nothing is safe. I shall send you back at once.”

There was a look in the large eyes which turned so hopelessly from Arthur to Grace, and from Grace back to Arthur, like that the hunted deer wears when hotly pursued in the chase. The white lips moved but uttered no sound and the fingers closed convulsively around the golden locket which Arthur advanced to take away.

“Let me see her once more,” she said.

He could not refuse her request, and touching the spring he held it up before her.

“Pretty lady,” she whispered, “sweet lady, whose name I most know, speak, and tell Mr. Arthur that I didn’t do it. I surely didn’t.”

This constant appeal to Arthur, and total disregard of herself, did not increase Mrs. Atherton’s amiability, and taking Edith by the shoulder she attempted to lead her from the room.

At the door Edith stopped, and said imploringly to Arthur,

“DO you think I stole it?”

He shook his head, a movement unobserved by Grace, but fraught with so much happiness for the little girl. She did not heed Grace’s reproaches now, nor care if she was banished to her own room for the remainder of the day. Arthur believed her innocent; Uncle Tom believed her innocent, and Rachel believed her innocent, which last fact was proved by the generous piece of custard pie hoisted to her window in a small tin pail, said pail being poised upon the prongs of a long pitch-fork. The act of thoughtful kindness touched a tender chord in Edith’s heart, and the pie choked her badly, but she managed to eat it all save the crust, which she tossed into the grass, laughing to see how near it came to hitting Mrs. Atherton, who looked around to discover whence it could possibly have come.

That night, just before dark, Grace entered Edith’s room, and told her that as Mr. St. Claire, who left them on the morrow, had business in New York, and was going directly there, she had decided to send her with him to the Asylum. “He will take a letter from me,” she continued, “telling them why you are sent back, and I greatly fear it will be long ere you find as good a home as this has been to you.”

Edith sat like one stunned by a heavy blow. She had not really believed that a calamity she so much dreaded, would overtake her, and the fact that it had, paralyzed her faculties. Thinking her in a fit of stubbornness Mrs. Atherton said no more, but busied herself in packing her scanty wardrobe, feeling occasionally a twinge of remorse as she bent over the little red, foreign-looking chest, or glanced at the slight figure sitting so motionless by the window.

“Whose is this?” she asked, holding up a box containing a long, thick braid of hair.

“Mother’s hair! mothers hair! for Marie told me so. You shan’t touch THAT!” and like a tigress Edith sprang upon her, and catching the blue-black tress, kissed it passionately, exclaiming, “‘Tis mother’s—‘tis. I remember now, and I could not think before, but Marie told me so the last time I saw her, years and years ago. Oh, mother, if I ever had a mother, where are you to-night, when I want you so much?”

She threw herself upon her humble bed, not thinking of Grace, nor yet of the Asylum, but revelling in her newborn joy. Suddenly, like a flash of lightning, an incident of the past had come back to her bewildered mind, and she knew now whose was the beautiful braid she had treasured so carefully. Long ago—oh, how long it seemed to her—there had come to the Asylum a short, dumpy woman, with a merry face, who brought her this hair in a box, telling her it was her mother’s, and also that she was going to a far country, but should return again sometime—and this woman was Marie, who haunted her dreams so often, whispering to her of magnolias and cape-jessamines. All this Edith remembered distinctly, and while thinking of it she fell asleep, nor woke to consciousness even when Rachel’s kind old hands undressed her carefully and tucked her up in bed, saying over her a prayer, and asking that Miss Grace’s heart might relent and keep the little girl. It had not relented when morning came, and still, when at breakfast, Arthur received a letter, which made it necessary for him to go to New York by way of Albany, she did suggest that it might be too much trouble to have the care of Edith.

“Not at all,” he said; and half an hour later Edith was called into the parlor, and told to get herself in readiness for the journey.

“Oh, I can’t, I can’t,” cried Edith, clinging to Mrs. Atherton’s skirt, and begging of her not to send her back.

“Where will you go?” asked Grace. “I don’t want you here.”

“I don’t know,” sobbed Edith, uttering the next instant a scream of joy, as she saw, in the distance, the carriage from Collingwood, and knew that Richard was in it. “To him! to him!” she exclaimed, throwing up her arms. “Let me go to Mr. Harrington! He wants me, I know.”

“Are you faint?” asked Grace, as she saw the sudden paling of Arthur’s lips.

“Slightly,” he answered, taking her offered salts, and keeping his eyes fixed upon the carriage until it passed slowly by, “I’m better now,” he said, returning the salts, and asking why Edith could not go to Collingwood.

Grace would rather she should go anywhere else, but she did not say so to Arthur. She merely replied that Edith was conceited enough to think Mr. Harrington pleased with her just because he had sometimes talked to her when she carried him flowers.

“But of course he don’t care for her,” she said. “What could a blind man do with a child like her? Besides, after what has occurred, I could not conscientiously give her a good name.”

Arthur involuntarily gave an incredulous whistle, which spoke volumes of comfort to the little girl weeping so passionately by the window, and watching with longing eyes the Collingwood carriage now passing from her view.

“We must go or be left,” said Arthur, approaching her gently, and whispering to her not to cry.

“Good bye, Edith,” said Mrs. Atherton, putting out her jewelled band; but Edith would not touch it, and in a tone of voice which sank deep into the proud woman’s heart, she answered:

“You’ll be sorry for this some time.”

Old Rachel was in great distress, for Edith was her pet; and winding her black arms about her neck, she wept over her a simple, heartfelt blessing, and then, as the carriage drove from the gate, ran back to her neglected churning, venting her feelings upon the dasher, which she set down so vigorously that the rich cream flew in every direction, bespattering the wall, the window, the floor, the stove, and settling in large white flakes upon her tawny skin and tall blue turban.

Passing through the kitchen, Grace saw it all, but offered no remonstrance, for she knew what had prompted movements so energetic on the part of odd old Rachel. She, too, was troubled, and all that, day she was conscious of a feeling of remorse which kept whispering to her of a great wrong done the little girl whose farewell words were ringing in her ear: “You’ll be sorry for this some time.”

 

CHAPTER VI.

ARTHUR AND EDITH.

 

If anything could have reconciled Edith to her fate, it would have been the fact that she was travelling with Arthur St. Claire, who, after entering the cars, cared for her as tenderly as if she had been a lady of his own rank, instead of a little disgraced waiting maid, whom he was taking back, to the Asylum. It was preposterous, he thought, for Grace to call one as young as Edith a waiting maid, but it was like her, he knew. It had a lofty sound, and would impress some people with a sense of her greatness; so he could excuse it much more readily than the injustice done to the child by charging her with a crime of which he knew she was innocent. This it was, perhaps, which made him so kind to her, seeking to divert her mind from her grief by asking her many questions concerning herself and her family. But Edith did not care to talk. All the way to Albany she continued crying; and when, at last, they stood within the noisy depot, Arthur saw that the tears were still rolling down her cheeks like rain.

“Poor little girl. How I pity her!” he