A CHANGE OF SCENE
It was two o’clock in the afternoon when at length Paul Tressalia
knocked upon Editha’s parlor door.
It was opened by the chambermaid, of whom he inquired for Miss Dalton.
“She is gone, sir,” was the unexpected reply.
“Gone! Where?” he exclaimed, infinitely surprised.
“I don’t know, sir; they left on the noon boat.”
“Did they leave no word—no message for me?”
“Yes, sir; Miss Dalton left a note,” the girl answered, producing it
from the depths of her pocket.
Paul eagerly tore it open and devoured its contents:
“DEAR FRIEND:—Papa has suddenly decided that Newport is ‘tame,’ and
longs for Saratoga. We are to leave on the twelve-o’clock boat, and do
not know when we shall return. I shall not soon forget the days you
have made so pleasant for me, nor the great good your cheerful society
has done me. I would rather stay than go, but think it best to yield
to papa’s wishes. I hoped to see you before we left, but suppose you
were engaged. Please give my kind remembrances to Madam Sylvester. _Au
revoir._
EDITHA.”
“What in the name of Jupiter can have made him take this sudden start?”
Paul Tressalia muttered, with a clouded brow, as with a terrible feeling
of loneliness he sought his own rooms. “Can anything have transpired to
upset his equilibrium?” he continued. “It must have been a _very_ sudden
start, for I do not believe he contemplated any such thing yesterday
morning.”
He sat a long time thinking the matter over, and longing to follow them
immediately.
He knew Editha would miss his care and attention, while as for him, it
seemed as if the sun had suddenly been put out of existence.
Mr. Dalton had not treated him with his usual politeness this summer,
and he was not sure but that he had done this purposely, in order to
remove Editha from his society, and, if that was the case, he doubted
the propriety of going after them.
These reflections were interrupted by the entrance of a servant, who
brought him a card.
It proved to be that of Madam Sylvester, and he immediately went down to
the reception-room, taking with him the note Editha had written.
“Why that brow of gloom, my friend? You look as if you had met with some
sudden and great disappointment,” madam said, playfully, after they had
exchanged greetings.
“And so I have. I have just learned that Miss Dalton and her father have
gone to Saratoga; and the suddenness of the movement disturbs and
perplexes me exceedingly.”
“Gone! Now _I_ am dismayed, for I had come to call and be introduced to
Papa Dalton, and ask him to spare his charming daughter to me for a few
days. We are going to join a party to the White Mountains, and I thought
if I could tempt Miss Dalton to accompany us, the change would do her
good,” madam said, with regret.
“It would have been beneficial to her, and it was very thoughtful in you
to remember her,” replied Mr. Tressalia, much pleased at this attention.
“Do not give me any credit for what is pure selfishness on my part,”
madam said, laughing. “I am over head and ears in love, as they say
here, with your lovely little friend, and I wanted her under the shadow
of my own wing for awhile to get better acquainted with her;” and the
lady’s face was very wistful, notwithstanding her playful speech.
“I cannot understand their sudden flight—for such it seems to me,”
returned Mr. Tressalia, moodily.
“Then you did not know anything of their intention?”
“Not a breath, until about half an hour ago, when I knocked at Miss
Dalton’s door, and the chambermaid gave me this note;” and he handed it
to her.
“What a pretty hand she writes,” said madam, smiling, as she noted the
delicate chirography upon the perfumed envelope.
She read it through, growing grave as she marked the regret the note
expressed at being obliged to go away.
Her eyes lighted with tenderness at the mention of herself, but she
started as if in sudden pain, her fair face flushing a vivid crimson, as
she read and involuntarily repeated the name signed at the bottom.
“Editha! Mr. Tressalia, you never told me what your friend’s name is,”
and he thought her lips quivered slightly, as if at the remembrance of
some sad incident of the past.
“No; I usually call her Miss Dalton when speaking of her to others. It
is the dearest name in the world to me,” he added, with a slight
huskiness in his voice, “though I never utter it without pain.”
“_Et tu_,” madam said, softly, noting the pain in his face, and knew all
about it at once. “I thought you said——” she began again, and then
suddenly stopped, as if she were trespassing upon forbidden ground.
“I know to what you refer,” he replied. “I thought when you asked me if
I was ‘particularly interested’ in her that you meant to infer an
engagement between us, but—I may as well confess it—I have loved her
hopelessly for two years.”
Madam sighed heavily.
“Why is it that the world always goes wrong for some people?” he asked,
passionately, and longing for sympathy now that he had begun to unburden
his heart, and realizing, also that now Editha was gone, Newport was a
blank to him, and fearing that his boasted “friendship” had not been so
disinterested after all.
“Ah, why, unless to fit us for something better than earth’s fleeting
pleasures? There are some people in the world who would never own
allegiance to the Great King, if they were not driven to Him by sorrow.
It were better to suffer a few years here than to miss the bright
Forever,” madam, said, musingly, and as if talking with herself rather
than to him. “But,” she added, shaking off her dreaminess, “tell me more
of this beautiful girl and your unfortunate regard for her—I am an old
and privileged friend, you know, and the name ‘Editha’ has a charm for
me which will only cease when I cease to live.”
Paul Tressalia, glad to have so sweet a confidante, related all the
story of his love for the fair girl, his disappointment on learning of
her affection for Earle Wayne, his hasty summons home to take possession
of his supposed inheritance, which lost half its charm when he knew that
Editha could not become its mistress and his wife.
He told her how he had been obliged to resign Wycliffe to Earle, who
also hoped to make Miss Dalton mistress there, and who had returned so
full of joy and hope to claim her as his own.
Then came the story of her strange abduction, her release from her
captor’s power by her lover, and then, when they believed their trials
were all at an end, the dreadful blow came which had nearly broken both
their hearts, and had seemed likely to wear Editha into her grave.
“What a sad, wonderful story it is. And you, I suppose, after the
discovery which had ruined the life of your cousin, came thither to test
your fate again?” madam said, her eyes beaming gentlest of sympathy upon
the rejected lover.
“Yes; but I might have known better,” he answered, bitterly, and with a
sigh that was almost a sob heaving his broad chest. “I might have known
that a love like hers, so pure, so strong, and noble, could never be won
by another.”
“Truly things do seem to go wrong sometimes in this world,” madam said,
sadly, and thinking of the poor sweet child who had passed through such
deep water. Then, suddenly looking up at her companion with a keen
glance, she continued: “You have suffered, my friend, deeply—you suffer
now, even though you strive so nobly to overcome it; but—would you deem
me very unsympathetic if I should tell you that I believe it will be
better for you, after all, not to have married Editha Dalton, even
though she could have given her wounded heart into your keeping?”
Paul Tressalia regarded her with astonishment.
“Why should you say that?” he asked.
“She is not exactly fitted for you—you might have passed a quiet,
peaceful life together, but you could not have met all the wants of her
nature, nor she of yours. You are maturer for your years than she is for
hers, and beautiful, talented, lovable though she may be, there would
have come a time in your lives when you both would have discovered there
was something wanting to fill out the measure of your happiness.”
“You speak like a prophetess,” Paul Tressalia said, with a sad,
skeptical smile.
“I have not lived my lonely life for naught,” she answered, with a sigh.
“I have studied human nature in all its phases, and, from what I know of
you, I feel that the woman whom you should marry should be quiet and
self-contained like yourself, with a little touch of sorrow in her life
to mate your own, and nearer your age.”
“I shall never marry,” he said, with a pale and suffering face, and yet
wondering at his companion’s strange words, while somehow his thoughts
involuntarily took a swift flight, and he saw in the quiet parlor of a
vine-clad gothic villa a gentle woman, with a sweet though sad face,
which, next to Editha Dalton’s, he had once told himself was the most
beautiful his eyes had ever rested upon, while her voice, with its
plaintive music, had vibrated upon his heart as the gentle summer breeze
vibrates upon the strings of an æolian harp.
He had called it sympathy then. Would the mystic future, as it drew on
apace, gradually efface this bitter pain from his heart, and he find
beneath it a new name written there?
“You may think so now, but believe me, Paul, my friend, you will find
her yet—this gentle, beautiful woman whom you should marry,” madam said,
in reply to his remark about not marrying.
“My dear madam,” he returned, with a smile and a shake of his head, “you
are but building castles in the air, which the lightest breath will
dissipate. A man can never love but once as I have loved Editha Dalton.”
“That may be true,” madam smilingly assented; “but the first fierce,
wild passion may not always be the wisest love. Wait a little, _mon
ami_, and we shall see. You know—
‘No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto his own.’
But, meantime, I have a strange, irrepressible longing to see more of
this motherless girl, whose life has been so sadly blighted at the
outset. Mr. Tressalia, I think _I_ would like to see a little of
Saratoga myself, and I feel confident that Miss Editha would not feel
sorry to see her friend again.”
“Do you think so?” he asked, eagerly.
“I am sure of it. This little note breathes of a strong regret that she
was obliged to go away at all. I am afraid she will wilt again if she
cannot be under genial influences.”
Madam’s face was full of a strange, wistful tenderness as she spoke, and
Paul Tressalia wondered why she should feel so strangely drawn toward
Editha. It was a matter of wonder to all.
“Does that mean that you think we had better follow Mr. Dalton and his
daughter to Saratoga?” he asked.
“Yes; but first I must go to the White Mountains, since I proposed the
trip, and others would be disappointed if it was given up. I must
postpone my trip to Saratoga until my return,” returned madam, with a
look which plainly said she wished she had not planned the trip to the
mountains at all.
“I wonder——” Paul began, and then stopped.
“Well? And so do I,” laughed his companion, after waiting a moment and
he did not go on.
“I was pondering the question whether it is best for me to go to
Saratoga at all,” he said, gravely.
“And why not?”
“If Editha is really on the gain, it would perhaps be better for me to
return at once to England and not see her again.”
“Does it hurt you so, my friend?” asked madam, pityingly. “You must
conquer that, if possible, though I myself know how hard a thing that is
to do, and it seems cold advice to give. But it would give me pleasure
if you would accompany us to Saratoga. We know nothing about the ins and
outs of the place, and it would really be a comfort to have a pilot.”
“Then that settles the matter. I will go with you,” he said.
“Not if it is to interfere with any necessary business,” madam said,
hastily, yet decidedly.
“It will not. I have no business—I have no aim in life now,” he added,
bitterly.
“Come with us to the mountains,” Madam Sylvester said, with a sudden
thought. “You need a little judicious comforting as well as Miss Dalton,
and I believe I am just the one to take you in hand. Will you come?”
“Yes, thanks; I cannot resist. I believe you charm every one with whom
you come in contact,” he answered, laughing, and glad to be invited.
“That is pleasant to hear. We will make our trip as short as possible,
and then fly to the far-famed springs of Saratoga, to drink of their
mystic waters.”
And so it was arranged, and Paul Tressalia was drawn irresistibly to do
this woman’s bidding, yet wondering at himself for doing it, and more
and more surprised to see how Editha had fascinated her.
But he could not know how rapidly an invisible hand was turning the
pages of life, and that he was soon to read a strange story in that
mystic book of fate, which Heaven so seldom deigns to open to mortal
eyes.