THE BUNCH OF HOLLY
“Silence is the perfect herald of joy;
I were but little happy it I could say how much.”
Words were never more applicable than these to those undeclared lovers,
sitting in such a mute happiness side by side, in the little
reception-room, on that bright morning so near Christmastide.
Editha was the first to break the spell.
“I have not told you Uncle Richard’s message yet,” she said, and an
expression of anxiety for the moment chased the radiant look from her
face.
“True—it was like his kindness to remember me,” Earle returned, a shadow
stealing over his fine face.
“He thought a great deal of you, and had great hopes for your future——”
“Which, if it amounts to anything, will be in a great measure owing to
his goodness,” he interrupted, with emotion.
“Yes, Uncle Richard was a true, good man; but, Earle, now I have
something unpleasant to tell you. I—he left you a _token_ of his
remembrance.”
She hesitated, and he said, with a smile:
“I’m sure there is nothing unpleasant about that.”
“No; but wait,” she began, in some confusion and hardly knowing how to
go on with her disagreeable task; “he left you a little money, ten
thousand dollars, to give you a start in life, he said.”
Earle Wayne startled and flushed deeply.
“Did Mr. Forrester do that?” he asked, greatly moved.
“Yes; and now comes the disagreeable part of it all. I do not like to
tell you, but I must,” she said, lifting her crimson, troubled face to
him, and he wondered what there was about it that should make her appear
so. “Papa did not like it very well,” she went on, dropping her eyes
with a feeling of shame. “He thought that it was not right the money
should go to a stranger, and—and—oh! Earle, I know it seems selfish and
cruel, but he says you cannot have it.”
Editha nearly broke down here; it had required all her courage to tell
him this; and now she sat still, covered with shame and confusion. A
shade of bitterness passed over the young man’s face at her last words,
and then the least smile of scorn curled his fine lips.
He had never experienced very much respect for Sumner Dalton; he knew
him to be a man devoid of principle, of small mind, and smaller soul;
but he was Editha’s father, and he could speak no word against him. He
saw how ashamed and uncomfortable she felt to be obliged to make this
humiliating confession regarding her only parent, while he admired the
fine sense of honor that would not allow her to shrink from her duty in
telling him.
“I am going to tell you just how the matter stands,” she resumed
presently: “and then you must excuse papa as best you can. You doubtless
have heard that Uncle Richard was paralyzed—he had no use of either his
hands or his feet, and was entirely helpless, although his mind was
clear until just before his second shock, which came suddenly in the
night. He told me the day before that he knew he could not live, and
gave me directions just what to do. He said if he could only use his
hands, he would have added a codicil to his will in your favor, but as
it was, I must attend to his wishes. He said it—the will—had been made
many years ago, giving everything to me; but ever since he became
interested in you he had intended doing something handsome for you; if
he had lived and you wished it, he would have wanted you to go back to
him as a partner in his business, as soon as you should be free to do
so. But he charged me—_made me promise_—to make over to you ten thousand
dollars as soon as your time expired.
“He left a large fortune, more than I shall ever know what to do with,
and I was _so glad_ of this bequest to you,” Editha went on, heartily.
“I asked Mr. Felton to see that everything was done properly, so that
you could have the money at once. He did so, and I wanted you to have it
as a sort of Christmas gift; but, Earle, I am not twenty-one yet; papa
is still my natural guardian.”
“Well?” Earle said, encouragingly, as she stopped in distress, and he
pitied her for having to make this confession to him, while a tender
smile wreathed his lips at her truthfulness and her sorrow on his
account.
“So there is no way—you will have to wait a little while for your money.
I shall be twenty-one the twentieth of next November, and my own
mistress; and, Earle, you shall have it then, with the year’s interest
added.”
He nearly laughed to see how eager she was for him to have exactly his
due; then he grew suddenly grave, and said, gently but firmly:
“No, Editha, I do not wish, I cannot take _one dollar_ of this money.”
“But it was Uncle Richard’s dying wish and bequest to you—it _belongs_
to you by _right_,” she pleaded, bitterly disappointed by his refusal to
take it.
“No, by your uncle’s will, which he did not any way change, it all
belongs to you.”
“But he would have changed the will if he could have held a pen; he said
so; and the money is not mine,” she cried, almost in tears.
“The law would judge differently—your father is right. It should not
come to me”—this was said with a touch of bitterness, however—“and I
will not have one dollar of it.”
“Supposing that you were in my place just now, and I in yours, would you
claim that it all belonged to you?” she asked, lifting her searching
glance to his face.
“No,” he said; “but the difference in our positions, because I am _not_
in your place and you in mine, alters the case altogether.”
“I cannot agree with you; and you would have considered me mean and
dishonorable if I had taken advantage of the will and claimed the whole,
would you not?”
“But you did not; you have done your duty, and consequently have nothing
to regret,” Earle replied, evasively.
“But you did not answer my question,” Editha persisted; “would you think
that I had done right if I had not wished to give you this money and
withheld it from you?”
“N-o,” he admitted, reluctantly.
“And, morally speaking, it does not belong to me.”
“The will gave you everything——”
“That is not the question,” she interrupted. “If you were pleading the
case for some one else, you would claim that the money did not belong to
me, and that, morally speaking, I had no right whatever to it?”
“Editha, you should be a lawyer yourself.”
“That is a side issue; as they say in court, stick to the point, if you
please,” she again interrupted; “have I not stated the truth?”
“I am obliged to confess that you have; but, Editha, I do not want the
money, though I am very grateful to Mr. Forrester for his kindness in
remembering me, and to you for wishing to carry out his wishes so
faithfully.”
“Please, Earle, take it; I _want_ you to have it, and I wish to do just
as he told me to do; you will wound me deeply if you refuse it,” she
urged.
It was a very sweet, earnest face that looked up into his, and, had she
pleaded for almost anything else, Earle would have found it impossible
to resist her. His own face grew grave, almost sorrowful, as he
returned:
“I would not cause you a moment’s unnecessary pain, Editha, but I must
be firm in this decision. Forgive me if I wound you; but, on the whole,
I am glad that Mr. Dalton win a name and position entirely by my own
merits. By my own strong arm will I carve out my future and win my way
in the world; by my own indomitable will and energy, with the help of a
greater than I, I will rise to honor, and _not_ upon the foundation that
another has built,” he concluded, with an earnestness and solemnity that
made Editha’s heart thrill with pride and the conviction of his ultimate
success.
“You are very brave,” she said, with admiring but still wistful eyes.
“But suppose Uncle Richard _had_ added a codicil to his will in your
favor, what then?”
A smile of amusement curled his lips.
“Then I suppose the wheels of my car of ambition would have been
unavoidably clogged with this fortune. It would not then have been
optional with me whether I would have it or not.”
“It shall not be now; the money is not mine—I _will not_ keep it. I
should be as bad as those wretches who robbed us, and then left you to
suffer for their crime,” Editha exclaimed, passionately, and almost in
despair at his obstinacy.
“I do not see how you can do otherwise than keep it; every one will tell
you that it is legally yours.”
“There is many a moral wrong perpetuated under the cloak of ‘legality,’”
she began, somewhat sarcastically, then continued, more earnestly: “My
proud, self-willed knight, whose watchwords are truth and honor, whose
life is to be ‘foursquare,’ do you think there are no others whose
natures are reaching out after the same heights? There _are_ others,
Earle,” she said, more softly, with glowing cheeks and drooping lids,
“who look with longing eyes toward the ‘jasper walls,’ and ‘gates of
pearl;’ and can one be ‘true and honorable’ and keep what does not
belong to one?”
“How can I convince you, Editha, that I _cannot_ take this money?”
“But what _will_ you do, Earle? How will you begin life again?” she
asked, anxiously.
“I have a little, enough for that, laid by; and now, with three years’
interest added, it will be sufficient to give me a start, and I shall do
very well. Do not allow my refusal to comply with your wishes to disturb
you. Try to imagine that if Mr. Forrester had never known me he would
never have thought of making a change in the disposition of his
property,” Earle concluded, lightly.
“But the _if_ exists, nevertheless. He _did_ make the change; and, once
for all, I will not have my conscience burdened with what is not my own.
Earle, on the twentieth of next November I shall deposit in the First
National Bank of this city ten thousand dollars, with a year’s interest,
to your credit,” she asserted, resolutely. “Meanwhile,” she added, “Mr.
Felton told me to say to you that he thought he could arrange some way
for you to keep your head above board, if you will go to him.”
“I thank Mr. Felton, but I think the term ‘self-willed’ may be applied
to some one else besides myself,” Earle answered, smilingly.
“Earle,” cried the lovely girl, turning suddenly upon him, and, with
something of her old girlish impulse, laying one white hand on his, “if
you won’t do as I wish for your _own_ sake, won’t you for _mine_?
and”—the color mounting to her forehead as she made the delicate
offer—“until the year expires, won’t you please go to Mr. Felton and get
whatever you need?”
If Earle was ever impatient and rebellious in his life he was at that
moment at the cruel fate that kept him from reaching out and clasping
his beautiful beloved in his arms, and telling her all the love of his
great heart.
How delicately she had worded her proposition! She had not coarsely
offered to give him money from her own income, feeling that his proud
spirit would recoil from coming to her, a woman, for help; but she had
made Mr. Felton the medium through which all his needs might be supplied
until he could establish himself in business.
He ventured to take that small hand and press it gratefully.
“Editha,” he said, striving to control the quiver in his tones, “to both
of your requests I must repeat the inevitable ‘No;’ and for the first, I
entreat you not to tempt me, for I cannot tell you how hard it is to
refuse anything you ask me, and particularly in that way. As for the
other there will be no need, I trust, for I have enough for all my
present wants, and before that is gone I hope to be in a way to supply
all future needs.”
Editha sighed, but saw that his decision was unalterable, and so let the
matter drop for the time.
They chatted for an hour on various topics, and then Earle rose to take
his leave.
She longed to ask him to come again on the morrow to dine, as she had
planned, knowing how lonely he would be when everybody else was so gay;
but she knew that it would be no pleasure for him to meet Mr. Dalton in
his present mood; but she did ask him to call whenever he was at
liberty, and she added, with one of her charming smiles:
“Uncle Richard’s books are all here; won’t you come and avail yourself
of them whenever you like?”
He thanked her with a look that made her cheeks hot again; and then she
asked him to wait a moment and she would bring him his package. She was
gone scarcely three minutes, and then came back with it in one hand, and
the loveliest little bouquet imaginable in the other.
It was composed of stiff holly leaves, with their glossy sheen and
bright winter berries, clear and red, and vivid in their contrast. It
was as lovely a bit of floral handicraft as Earle had ever seen, and his
eyes lighted admiringly as they rested on it.
“It is for you, Earle,” Editha said, simply, seeing his look, and
handing it to him. “I made it for you this morning, hoping you would
come to-day. You will not expect me to wish you a ‘merry Christmas;’
but,” in low, sweet tones, “I will say instead, ‘_Peace_, good-will
toward men.’”
Earle was too deeply moved to reply.
He stood looking down upon the glossy red and green, a mist gathering
over his eyes in spite of his manhood, and blessing her in his heart for
those precious words which told him he had been remembered before he was
seen.
She had “made it for him that morning, hoping he would come to-day!”
Her white fingers had put every shining spray in its place, and she had
thought of him the while!
Oh, why must he stand there with sealed lips, when he longed to say so
much?
She would not mock him with the usual Christmas formula; but what could
have been sweeter or more appropriate than the gentle, low-spoken
“Peace, good-will toward men?”
He slipped the package into an inside pocket, never mistrusting that it
had been tampered with, nor that its contents had unlocked for Sumner
Dalton the door to a mystery which he had long sought to penetrate in
vain.
“Thank you,” he said, as he buttoned his coat, “for caring for this; it
is very precious to me; and some day I will tell you why and show you
its contents. This much I will tell you now—had it been lost or
destroyed, _my identity_ would also have been destroyed.”
Editha looked up in surprise, but she asked no question.
His _identity_ destroyed! Was it possible that Sumner Dalton’s keen eyes
could have missed anything of importance within that package?
Editha accompanied him to the door, and parted from him with a simple
“good-night,” and then went quietly and gravely to her own room. But she
had sent him forth full of courage and hope in spite of his present
loneliness and unpromising future; and that bunch of holly was the most
precious thing that the world held for him that day, the fair giver
excepted.