POPULAR NOVELS.
BY
_Mrs. Mary J. Holmes_.
1.— TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE.
2.— ENGLISH ORPHANS.
3.— HOMESTEAD ON THE HILLSIDE.
4.— ‘LENA RIVERS.
5.— MEADOW BROOK.
6.— DORA DEANE.
7.— COUSIN MAUDE.
8.— MARIAN GRAY.
9.— DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT.
10.— HUGH WORTHINGTON.
11.— CAMERON PRIDE.
12.— ROSE MATHER.
13.— ETHELYN’S MISTAKE.
14.— MILLBANK.
15.— EDNA BROWNING.
16.— WEST LAWN.
17.— EDITH LYLE. (_New._)
“Mrs. Holmes is a peculiarly pleasant and fascinating writer. Her books
are always entertaining, and she has the rare faculty of enlisting the
sympathy and affections of her readers, and of holding their attention
to her pages with deep and absorbing interest.”
All published uniform with this volume. Price $1.50 each and sent _free_
by mail, on receipt of price, by
G. W. CARLETON & CO., Publishers,
New York.
Edith Lyle
A Novel.
BY
MRS. MARY J. HOLMES,
AUTHOR OF
TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE—LENA RIVERS—MEADOW BROOK—MARIAN GREY—CAMERON
PRIDE—ETHELYN’S MISTAKE—EDNA BROWNING—WEST LAWN, ETC., ETC.
[Illustration: logo]
NEW YORK:
_G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers_.
LONDON: S. LOW & CO.
MDCCCLXXVI.
COPYRIGHT, 1876, BY
DANIEL HOLMES.
JOHN F. TROW & SON,
PRINTERS AND STEREOTYPERS,
_205–213 East 12th Street_,
NEW YORK.
TO
MY ESTEEMED FRIENDS,
Francis S. Street and Francis S. Smith,
_Editors of the New York Weekly_,
TO WHOM
I AM INDEBTED FOR SO MANY KINDNESSES IN THE PAST,
_I DEDICATE_
THIS STORY.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTORY. By Esther Olivia Armstrong 9
I., and Call it Abelard 10
II.— Heloise 14
III.— The Day of the Funeral 21
IV.— The Confession 28
V.— Edith Lyle 36
VI.— The Beginning of a New Life 41
VII.— Eleven Years Later 44
VIII.— Mother and Daughter 51
IX.— Godfrey Schuyler 56
X.— Colonel Schuyler 68
XI.— Edith’s Diary 76
XII.— Edith and her Mother 81
XIII.— Mrs. Barrett’s Lodgers 84
XIV.— Colonel Schuyler Returns 87
XV.— Edith’s Answer 92
XVI.— Breaking the News 101
XVII.— The Bridal 108
XVIII.— At Oakwood after the Bridal 114
XIX.— The Bridal Days 119
XX.— On the Sea 132
XXI.— The Ladies at Schuyler Hill 145
XXII.— The News at Schuyler Hill 149
XXIII.— Mrs. Rogers and Gertie at Hampstead 159
XXIV.— Mrs. Rogers Gets Work 172
XXV.— They Come 175
XXVI.— How they Received her 178
XXVII.— After Dinner 189
XXVIII.— One Day in Hampstead 198
XXIX.— The First Sunday in Hampstead 209
XXX.— Company at Schuyler Hill 217
XXXI.— The Church Sociable 222
XXXII.— Mrs. Rogers Speaks her Mind 230
XXXIII.— The New Life at the Hill 234
XXXIV.— Mary Rogers 240
XXXV.— Gertie at the Hill 246
XXXVI.— After Four Years 256
XXXVII.— The Travellers 261
XXXVIII.— Colonel Schuyler Interviews Godfrey 275
XXXIX.— Colonel Schuyler Interviews Gertie 282
XL.— Robert Macpherson Interviews Gertie 288
XLI.— A few Details of that Summer in Hampstead 293
XLII.— The Sail on the River 297
XLIII.— The Course of Love does not Run Smooth 304
XLIV.— Godfrey and Gertie 307
XLV.— Robert Macpherson and Colonel Schuyler 313
XLVI.— Godfrey and his Father 315
XLVII.— Waiting 318
XLVIII.— Giving in Marriage 320
XLIX.— Mrs. Doctor Barrett 323
L.— The Storm Gathering 330
LI.— The Storm Bursts 333
LII.— The Battle between Life and Death 343
LIII.— Colonel Schuyler and the Secret 348
LIV.— Husband and Wife 356
LV.— The Search in London 364
LVI.— Gertie 372
LVII.— In New York 375
LVIII.— Gertie and the Story 384
LIX.— The Story in Hampstead 391
LX.— Edith and Gertie 397
LXI.— Godfrey and Gertie 402
LXII.— The Wedding 408
LXIII.— Mary Rogers’ Letter to Edith 411
LXIV., and Last 419
EDITH LYLE.
INTRODUCTORY.
BY ESTHER OLIVIA ARMSTRONG.
As I sit here, this bright autumnal morning, and from the window of my
room look out upon the river winding its way to the sea, there falls
upon my ears the merry chime of bells from the tower of the old gray
church,—wedding-bells they are,—and their echoes float across the water,
and up the mountain side, and then die away among the wooded cliffs
beyond, where the foliage has just been touched with the October frost,
and has here and there a gay trimming of scarlet and gold on its summer
dress of green. There is a wedding at St. Luke’s to-day, and the bridal
party is passing now, and I kiss my hand to the beautiful bride, who
flashes a smile at me from those wonderful eyes of hers,—eyes so like in
expression to those of the elder lady who sits beside her, and but for
whom that wedding at St. Luke’s would never have been. They are gone now
from my sight, and only the pealing of the bells is heard in the quiet
street, and as I muse upon the strange event which has made the people
of our town wild with excitement and curiosity, and of which I, perhaps,
know quite as much as any one, I ask myself, “Why not write out the
story, suppressing names, and dates, and localities, and give it to the
world, as a proof that real life is sometimes stranger than fiction.”
And so, just as the sound of the marriage-bells dies away among the
distant hills, I take my pen to begin a tale which will have in it no
part of my own life, save as it was sometimes interwoven with the lives
of those whose history I write. _I_ am only Esther Armstrong, the
village schoolmistress, a plain, old-fashioned woman of thirty-five,
with no incident whatever in my life worth recording; and so, with no
thought that any one will accuse me of egotism or conceit, I write down
CHAPTER I.,
AND CALL IT ABELARD.
The Schuylers were of Holland descent, and had married and intermarried
in England and America, and had in their family a title, it was said,
and they boasted of their Dutch blood, and English blood, and American
blood, and, like the famous Miss McBride, “were proud of their money and
proud of their pride,” and proud to be known as “the Schuylers of New
York,” who had for so many years kept themselves free from anything
approaching to plebeianism, and whose wealth and importance had been
steadily on the increase since the first English Schuyler left his
ancestral halls in Lincolnshire across the sea. But the race was
gradually dying out, and the only male member of the direct line in
America was Colonel Howard, a proud, reticent man, who, a few years
before my story opens, had married Miss Emily Rossiter, a lady fully up
to the Schuyler standard of moral and social worth.
It was true she brought with her a plain face and a brain not
overburdened with ideas, but she added to these the sum of two hundred
thousand dollars and an exclusiveness which saw nothing outside her own
narrow circle of friends. At the time of her marriage her husband,
Colonel Howard Schuyler, who loved the fresh grass and the air from the
hills better than brick walls and stony pavements, suggested that they
should spend a portion of the summer at his country-seat on the river,
but to this the lady would not listen. Hampstead was too quiet. Her
elegant laces, and satins, and diamonds, would be sadly out of place in
that rustic neighborhood, she thought; and so she went first to Europe,
and then, season after season, to Newport and Saratoga, and had a
cottage at Nahant, and climbed the White Mountains and the Catskills,
and tired herself out in her pursuit of happiness, until, at last,
broken in health and spirits, she signified a wish to go to Hampstead,
where she could find the rest she needed.
And so one April day Colonel Schuyler came up to our little town with a
whole army of workmen, who began at once their task of tearing down and
rebuilding the old house, which had belonged to the Schuylers so long,
and which latterly had been unoccupied and gradually going to decay. The
house, which was very large, stood upon an eminence overlooking the town
of Hampstead and the river below, and from this fact the place was known
as Schuyler Hill, though for years and years not a Schuyler had lived
there or manifested the slightest interest in it. There was a time,
however, within my mother’s memory, when all through the summer months
high festival had been held at the old place by the Schuylers, whose
graves were now in a little inclosure at the summit of the hill, where
the tall evergreens were growing, and where the weather-stained
headstones were, with their quaint devices and eulogies of people dead
long before I was born. Sometimes on a bright summer afternoon I used to
climb over the low railing into this yard, to gather the roses and
sweet-brier which grew there in such profusion, and, seated on the
grass, I would muse upon the dead folk who slept below, and wish so much
for a return of the days of which my mother had told me, when the great
house was full of high-born people, who made the neighborhood so gay,
and whose revellings were sometimes prolonged far into the night.
At last, however, there was a prospect of those days coming back again,
and the whole town was alive with wonder and curiosity when it was known
that not only was the old house to give way to a new and elegant modern
structure, but that the family was really coming there to live a good
portion of the year. Hampstead, which had slept so long, was alive now.
Property went up, and the people began to talk of a bank, and a new
hotel, and sent a petition that the express trains from Albany should
stop there, instead of thundering by on the wings of the wind with a
snort and a scream, which I thought was tantalizing and impertinent in
the extreme. Great, too, was the excitement and interest with regard to
the new house, which, under swift and efficient workmen, grew so rapidly
that, early in June, the framework of the tower could be seen above the
tree-tops, and was watched eagerly by the curious villagers.
“Lady Emily,” as her English maid always called her, came up one day to
see the place and give some directions with regard to certain rooms
intended expressly for herself, and with her came little Godfrey, her
only son, a brown-eyed, sweet-faced boy not quite six years old. I
remember just how they looked as they drove through the town in their
open barouche, Lady Emily in her jaunty bonnet, which I thought too
small and young for her pale, faded face, and little Godfrey in his
velvet suit, with his long hair curling on his neck. He was a pleasant,
sociable child, and soon made the acquaintance of all the workmen, but
was best pleased with Abelard Lyle, the young Englishman who was
employed upon the tower, and who at night, when his work was done, made
wonderful wagons and carts for the pretty little lad. All day long
Godfrey played about the building, and sometimes climbed the highest
possible point, and stood watching the men at their work below.
Especially was he delighted with the tower where Abelard was; and one
morning, the third after his arrival at Hampstead, he mounted to a
timber above the young man’s head, where he stood waving his cap and
hurrahing to his mother, who was driving leisurely about the grounds in
her pony phaeton. She saw him, and with a frantic gesture of her hand
motioned him to come down, while Abelard, too, called aloud to him and
warned him of his danger. How it happened Godfrey never could explain.
He only knew that he stepped backward and fell, that Abelard caught him
by the arm and threw him with a desperate effort upon a narrow platform,
where he lay unharmed, while his brave deliverer lay on the rubbish far
below, a crushed, bleeding thing! Only a thing now,—no life, no motion,
no soul, for that had gone to God; and they took the limp, insensible
object and laid it upon the grass, which was wet with the blood pouring
from the deep wound upon the temple where a sharp stone had struck.
Trembling with fear, little Godfrey came down the long ladders and
across the piles of boards to the mutilated form upon the grass; and
young as he was, he never forgot the look of the pale, dead face
upturned to the summer sun.
“Oh father!” he cried, as Colonel Schuyler came up, “he catched me and
throwd me onto the board, and tried to hold on himself, but couldn’t;
and now he’s dead, and I liked him so much; what shall we do?”
They could do nothing but bear the poor youth to his boarding place near
by, where they washed the blood and dirt from his stained face and
matted hair, and then began to ask where he came from, and who his
relatives were, if he had any. He was an English boy, and had not been
long in the country, some one said; but nobody could tell anything
definite concerning him or his friends, until there stepped from the
crowd an elderly, dignified woman, whom the people recognized as Mrs.
Fordham, a comparative stranger to them all. She, too, was English, and
she knew the youth who had lost his own life in his efforts to save
another. She had known him on the ship, she said. He had come to America
in the same vessel with herself a few months before. If they liked, they
could take him to her house and bury him from there, as she was the only
acquaintance he seemed to have, and he had sometimes called upon her
since coming to Hampstead. To this proposition the matron of the
boarding-house assented eagerly. A dead body and a funeral were not at
all to her taste, and besides she was not sure as to the pay she might
receive for her trouble, and she thanked Mrs. Fordham so cordially, and
evinced so strong a desire to be rid of her late boarder, that the
matter was arranged at once, and Mrs. Fordham started for home to make
ready for the dead man, who had been there only the night before, and
had left her so full of life, and health, and hope for the untried
future.