THE BRIDAL DAYS.
Dinner was over in the house where they had stopped for the night, and
drawing his chair near to the open window of their little parlor, Col.
Schuyler sat down to enjoy the sweet summer air, as it came stealing in
laden with the perfume of flowers and the freshly-cut hay upon the lawn
of the castle near by. Edith was in the dressing-room adjoining,
pretending to arrange her hair, but in reality trying to make up her
mind how to begin the story she must tell. And how would he receive it?
Would he spurn her at once, or, rather than let the world know of his
disgrace, would he keep her with him, a wife merely in name, whom he
never could love or respect?
“Oh, Father in Heaven,” she whispered, “you know I am not to blame in
this; help me to tell him, and incline him to receive it aright.”
Strengthened by this prayer for aid, she gave herself no time, for
further hesitation, but going swiftly to her husband’s side she laid her
hand on his shoulder in an appealing kind of way and said to him,
softly:
“Colonel Schuyler!”
During the few hours in which the colonel had had Edith all to himself
and felt that she really was his own, he had almost fallen in love with
her in sober earnest. Before that day he had greatly admired and liked
and respected and desired her, but something in the actual possession of
her had stirred a deeper feeling in his heart than mere pride in her
personal attractions, and when he felt the touch of her hand and heard
the sound of her voice, a great throb of delight thrilled through his
veins, and drawing her to him he made her sit upon his knee, and
smoothing her cheek caressingly, said to her:
“Don’t call me Colonel Schuyler, please. I’d rather be Howard to you,
now that you are my wife. It will seem to lessen the years between us,
and I do not want to be so much older than my darling. Call me Howard
now, and let me hear how it sounds.”
“Not yet,” Edith said; “not till I have told you something which should
have been told before, and which may make a difference.”
She spoke slowly and painfully, and Colonel Schuyler detected signs of
choking in her voice, and guessing at once that she was thinking of the
early lover, said to her, very kindly but firmly: “Don’t, Edith, please;
don’t tell me anything which will distress you. I do not wish to hear
it. Your mother told me enough,—all I care to know,—and I am satisfied.”
“But, Howard,”—she called him thus involuntarily, and there was a world
of pathos and pitiful entreaty in her voice, while the eyes she fixed
upon him were swimming in tears—“but, Howard, mother did not tell you
the whole——”
“Then you need not,” he answered, quickly. “If you are pure, and good,
and true, that is all I ask, and I know you are all of these. I daresay
your mother did not tell me as eloquently as you could have told me how
much you loved that man, and how your heart ached for him; and you wish
me to know it all, but I am satisfied. You are my wife, and nothing can
make any difference, even if you were his widow, instead of his
affianced, though widows are not to my taste. I am satisfied, and to
prove that I am, I do not even care to know his name or where he lived.
In fact, I would rather not know it, would rather you should never refer
to it again, for it is not a pleasant topic; and now for the favor you
were to ask me on our wedding day, and which I was to grant even to half
my kingdom.”
He spoke playfully and held her closer to him while the hot tears poured
over Edith’s face. What should she do? Should she tell him in spite of
his protest and his assurance that he was satisfied? She could not with
the memory of his words, “Widows are not to my taste,” still ringing in
her ears, and so she let the opportunity pass, and the only favor she
asked was that whatever might come in the future he would have faith in
her and believe that she meant to do right.
“Of course I will, you foolish little girl. You are nervous and tired
to-night,” he said; and then, as if struck with a sudden thought, he
added: “Only tell me one thing,—if that young man had lived and not
improved beyond what he was when you knew him, and you had grown to be
what you are, could you have loved him now as you did then?”
“Perhaps not. I never thought of it in that light,” Edith said; and her
husband continued:
“One question more. Do you believe you can in time love me as well as
you did him?”
“Yes, Howard, I know I can,” Edith spoke quickly, and her arms wound
themselves involuntarily around her husband’s neck, while for the first
time she kissed him unsolicited.
“Then, my darling,” he responded, “there is nothing before us but
happiness, if God so wills it, and may He deal by me as I do by you, my
precious wife.”
He was growing to love her so fast, and Edith knew it, and felt her
misery giving way, and her heart grew light again as it had been when
she fancied he knew the whole.
Edith had known from the first that it was the colonel’s plan to visit
Alnwick and go over the grand old castle which at this season of the
year was open to visitors, and she did not oppose him, though the
neighborhood of Alnwick was fraught with sad memories for her as having
been Abelard’s home. His friends were still living there, she knew from
Godfrey, and the first night at the inn where they took rooms was passed
in wakefulness, with a feeling of oppression and sadness which she could
not shake off. Abelard had told her so much of Alnwick and the castle,
and had talked of the time when she would visit it with him; and now, he
was dead, and she was there, the wife of another man, with that great
secret weighing her down at times and casting a shadow on everything.
How she wished she might see his home and the old mother he used to talk
of so fondly, and yet when her husband said to her one morning: “Edith,
I am going to call on some poor people who live about two miles from
here. Perhaps you will like to go with me when I tell you who they are,”
she trembled and grew cold, and scarcely heard a word of the story he
told her, and which she knew so much better than he did. “I called upon
them last summer,” he said, “when Godfrey was with me, and it is not
necessary that I should go again, but I know it will please them, and I
am so happy myself that I feel like conferring happiness on others. Will
you go, darling? They will feel honored if I bring them my young bride.”
“Oh, Howard, no! Please don’t ask me. I’d so much rather not,” Edith
cried, feeling how terrible it would be to go with her husband into the
presence of Abelard’s mother and hear her talk of him, as she assuredly
would.
She could not do it, and she expressed herself so decidedly, that the
colonel looked at her curiously while a cloud passed over his face; and,
without meaning to do so, he seemed displeased and out of sorts. He was
not accustomed to have his wishes thwarted, and he had set his heart
upon taking his wife with him when he visited the Lyles, and after he
had told her of his indebtedness to them he thought she ought to go out
of deference to his wishes. Surely it was not pride which prompted her
unwillingness to call upon such people, for what business had she to be
prouder than himself, he thought, and he seemed so moody and silent that
Edith detected the change in his manner at once, and resolving to
conquer her own personal feelings, went up to him and said:
“Howard, I have changed my mind; I will go with you if you wish it.”
His face cleared as he said: “Thank you, darling, I am very glad, both
because I like to have you with me, and because I know the attention
will be sure to please those people. Did I tell you of the little boy to
whom Godfrey gave his name, when we stopped there last year on our way
to Oakwood? He is always doing such things; has two or three namesakes
at home, a thing of which I do not altogether approve, but in the case
of these Nesbits I could not oppose it. Shall we start at once? It is
only two miles distant; will you walk or ride?”
Edith chose to walk, and they set off together across the fresh green
fields, and through the quiet, shaded lanes toward the low-thatched
cottage where Abelard Lyle was born, and where his mother sat knitting
by the door with a placid expression on her calm face, and the sunlight
falling on her snowy hair. It would be impossible to describe Edith’s
emotions as she walked with her husband through the lanes, and fields,
and woods where her boy-lover had so often been, and where he had
thought some day to bring her and show her to his mother, and it seemed
to her almost as if he was there, moving silently beside her, and once
when a leaf rustled at her feet, she started with a nervous cry and
clung close to her husband’s arm. And yet it was not regret for the dead
which thus affected her. Her life with Abelard was like a far-off dream
to her now, a thing apart from herself and her present life, and had her
husband known, she would not have felt as she did with that secret on
her mind, making her breathe quickly, and grow faint and pale when at
last the house was reached and she saw for the first time how humble and
poor Abelard’s home had been. Everything pertaining to it, however, was
scrupulously neat, and the little grass-plat before the door showed
frequent acquaintance with sickle or shears, while the old-fashioned
flowers on the narrow border told of good taste in some one. But it was
all so small and meagre and poor, and the calico dress of the old lady,
knitting on the porch, was faded and patched, and the white kerchief
pinned about her neck was darned in several places. She had a fair,
sweet old face, with a resemblance to Abelard, Edith thought, when at
the sound of their footsteps she looked up with a smile of welcome and
inquiry. From having always lived near the border she spoke with a broad
Scotch accent, which Edith did not comprehend at first. She was
evidently greatly pleased and flattered that Col. Schuyler had come to
see her again, and brought his bonny bride, whose hand she held in her
own, and into whose face she gazed curiously as she bade her welcome,
and led her into the house where Mrs. Nesbit, the daughter, sat with her
sleeves rolled up combing her long black hair, with a bit of glass
before her, and Godfrey Schuyler asleep in his rude cradle.
Mrs. Nesbit, or Jenny as she was called, was not naturally as refined as
her mother, and she kept on combing her hair without any apology,
talking rapidly all the time, and saying what an honor she felt it to be
for the likes of Col. Schuyler to visit the likes of them, though to be
sure he owed them something for her poor brother’s death. “You know
about that, I s’pose,” and she looked at Edith, whose dress she had been
closely inspecting between each passage of the comb through her hair.
Edith nodded in token that she did know. She could not speak; the room
was so small and so close, and the iron fingers held her throat with so
firm a clutch that she could only sit perfectly still and listen while
the old story was told again by Colonel Schuyler, and the mother wept
silently, ejaculating now and then, “Oh, my puir bairn, my puir bairn!”
Jenny did not cry. She was looking at the bride in her rich apparel, and
thinking how proud she was to be so unmoved, as if it was nothing to her
how many poor men lost their lives to save that of a Schuyler. And
Colonel Schuyler too had similar thoughts with Jenny, and believed it
was contempt for these people and their surroundings which kept Edith so
silent, in spite of his efforts to draw her into the conversation and
make her seem gracious and interested. Alas! he could not guess what she
was enduring as she sat there in Abelard’s home, and heard them talking
of him and all the incidents concerned with his death.
“You dinna ken my lad,” the mother said to her; “an’ so you dinna ken
how sair I was for him. Ah, he was a bonny lad and gude.”
Edith nodded, and the old lady went on, now addressing the colonel:
“A maun who kenned my boy and see him kilt coomed here onc’t an’ tauld
me about it, and said there was a young lass there who moight be Abel’s
sweetheart; heard ye tell of her like?”
No, the colonel had not heard of her, or he had forgotten, and as Edith
was not supposed to know anything of the circumstances she was spared
the questioning, and Mrs. Lyle went on to say that if there was such a
lass she’d like so much to know something of her.
“Mayhap,” and she turned again to Edith; “mayhap you’ll foind her some
day, and if you do wool ye let me know?”
Had her life depended upon it Edith could not have spoken, and a nod was
her only answer, while her cheeks burned scarlet and the perspiration
gathered about her mouth. The colonel was angry, and rose to take leave,
while Jenny, who was angry also at what she believed to be the lady’s
pride, began in a flippant way to say that, poor as they were, they had
some grand relatives; her oldest sister, Dorothea, had married into one
of the high Scotch families, where they kept twenty servants and dined
at six o’clock.
“Hoity-toity, Jenny, my lass,” said the mother, “what was the good o’
that? Dinna them foine folk turn my Dolly and her maun out o’ door and
never spake to ’em till he died?”
“Yes, mother, but their boy got the money at last, and was here to see
us a spell ago, lookin’ as foine as any gentleman,” Jenny said, and then
having given the final twist to her hair, and seeing that their guests
were really going, she woke the little Godfrey Schuyler, and took him
proudly to Edith, who could and did kiss him; an act which made amends
for much of her silence and seeming haughtiness of manner.
Had Edith followed out her impulse she would have kissed Abelard’s
mother, for the sake of the dead son, but after her persistent silence
and reserve there could be no excuse for such a proceeding, and so she
merely took the withered hand in her own and pressed it hard, managing
to say “good-by,” and then she passed through the low door, out into the
sunshine, like one passing from prison walls into freedom again.
For a time the colonel was silent, and never spoke a word until they
reached the border of the wood through which a path led to Alnwick;
then, as Edith paused a moment and looked back at the thatched roof with
the creeper climbing over it, he, too, looked back and said:
“I am glad my lot was not cast among such people; I cannot say they are
to my taste, especially that garrulous Mrs. Nesbit, with her fine comb
and bare arms. The old lady is better, and has a good deal of natural
refinement. I think our visit did her good; such people are always
pleased with attention from their betters, and it certainly does us no
harm to give it. Edith, my dear——” He spoke a little sternly now, and
his face was overcast. “I am sorry you chose to be so quiet and
reserved. It would have pleased me better if you had made an effort to
be more social with them, and I really owe them so much.”
“Oh, Howard, please forgive me. It was not pride which kept me silent. I
wanted to talk, but could not,” Edith said, while the tears rained over
her face.
He had made her cry, and he was sorry for it at once, and made her sit
down beside him on a rude bench by the path, and said he was hasty and
had expected too much from her, who could not of course sympathize with
his interest in the Lyles. And Edith listened to him, and felt like a
felon who is hiding his secret from the world. Why had she not told him
that first day of married life with him? Why had she not shrieked it in
his ear and compelled him to hear it? It had been easier then, sure,
than it was now, when so much had happened to make it hard, if not
impossible. Yes, impossible, she said to herself, as she remembered the
bare arms and the fine comb and the talkative Mrs. Nesbit. She could not
declare that woman to be her sister-in-law, and she forced the secret
still further down into her heart, and when her husband bade her kiss
him in token of forgiveness, she kissed him twice, and there was peace
between them as they walked arm in arm through the leafy woods and
grassy lanes back to their rooms at Alnwick.
But Edith’s mind was not at rest. Thoughts of that white-haired,
sweet-faced old lady, knitting in the sunshine, were constantly in her
mind. She had been cold, almost rude to her, and she wished to make
amends,—to leave, if possible, a good impression of herself in Abelard’s
old home,—to have his mother’s blessing as a guaranty of happiness in
the life before her, and as she lay awake many hours of the night, her
thoughts gradually formed themselves into a plan she resolved to carry
out. Her husband had been invited to dine at the castle with a party of
American gentlemen, who were about to introduce some farming implement
to the agent of the estate, who acted as host on the occasion. As no
ladies were included, Edith was to be left alone for several hours, and
she determined to improve the opportunity for redressing any wrong she
might have done to Mrs. Lyle.
It was twelve o’clock before her husband left her, and as soon as he was
gone she donned her walking-dress, and set off for the cottage near the
wood. Fortunately for her Mrs. Nesbit was out, but the old lady sat
knitting again on the porch, with little Godfrey Schuyler playing near
her on the floor. She recognized Edith, and seemed both glad and
surprised to see her.
“I wanted to come again,” Edith said, sitting down close beside the
woman. “I was not feeling well when I was here yesterday, and I could
not talk as I wished to do, but I did not mean it for coldness or pride.
Colonel Schuyler is so grateful for what your son did for him, and I—I
am interested in you, too,—more even than he can be, and if you like you
may tell all about your boy who died in that dreadful manner.”
There were tears in Edith’s eyes, and her voice trembled as she spoke,
while Mrs. Lyle stopped her knitting and looked curiously at her. She
had thought her proud and haughty, and had felt a little hurt by her
silence and reserve, while her daughter, in her coarser way, had not
hesitated to call her airy and an upstart, wondering who she was to feel
so much above them. That she was pretty, even Jenny conceded, while the
mother thought her very beautiful and grand. “Fit to be a duchess,” was
her verdict now, when she saw her again so humble and sweet, apologizing
for her reserve of the day before, and asking to hear about her poor
dead boy. She liked to talk of him, and once launched upon the subject
did not know when to stop, but talked on and on, narrating incidents of
his babyhood, boyhood and early manhood, while Edith listened with hands
clasped tightly together and a heart which beat almost audibly.
“And ye are goin’ where he’s buried,” Mrs. Lyle said to her. “And if ye
want an old woman’s blessin’, maylike you’ll keep his grave fresh and
clean, and send me a posy from it some day.”
“I will, I promise you I will, and if I can ever tell you about that
girl who loved him, I will do so,” Edith said vehemently; and then,
impelled by an impulse she could not resist, she continued: “Mrs. Lyle,
I want to ask you something which you’ll please keep to yourself. You
are old, and I am young; you are good, and I am not, but I want to be,
so much. If there was something in your life which you supposed your
husband knew, and which, after you were married, you found he did not
know, though through no fault of yours, and if you felt almost sure
that, had he known it, he would not have married you, and might think
less of you now, would you consider it your duty to tell him?”
Edith gasped out the words and sat panting with excitement and
agitation, while Mrs. Lyle considered for a moment, and then replied in
the following words, which I render in good English:
“Is the something which he don’t know a _sin_, a crime, a wrong to him,
or anybody?”
“No, not a sin, or wrong, only a mistake,” Edith replied; and the woman
continued:
“Would the withholding it now do harm to any one?”
“No; on the contrary, the telling it might cause my husband to think
less of me, and make us very unhappy.”
“Then if you meant no wrong, and the telling it can do no good, and
might do harm, and no one is interested but yourself, keep it to
yourself,” Mrs. Lyle said, while Edith felt herself growing light as
air.
It was strange how much comfort she derived from Mrs. Lyle’s advice, and
how much confidence she felt in the judgment of this woman, whom she had
seen but once before. It was almost as if absolution had been granted
her for her sins, past, present, and to come, and no religious devotee
ever felt lighter and freer after a full confession than Edith did for a
few moments after hearing Mrs. Lyle’s decision.
“Thank you, thank you,” she said. “You have done me so much good. I have
been so miserable, and there was no one whom I could talk with about it.
I shall not forget you, Mrs. Lyle, and sometimes I may perhaps write to
you, and tell you of my home. And now I must go; but first, will you
give me your blessing. I want it so much.”
And kneeling before the old lady Edith bowed her beautiful head, while a
hand was laid gently on her shining hair, and a trembling voice said
reverently: “Will God bless and keep my bonny child and make her a gude
and happy wife, an’ gi’e her many bairns to comfort her auld age.”
She was thinking of her Abelard who died, and Edith thought of him too,
and there were tears in her eyes as she rose from her knees, and,
kissing the white-haired woman who had done her so much good, went out
from her presence with a happier, lighter heart than she had known for
many a day.
It was all right, since Abelard’s mother had said so and blessed her,
and she could be happy now, and when her husband returned from the
castle he met a very bright, beaming face at the door of his room, and
his young wife’s arms were round his neck, and his wife herself was on
his knee when she told him that she had been again to see Mrs. Lyle, and
made ample amends for all yesterday’s reserve. She did not tell him of
the advice or blessing, but she said:
“I know I left a good impression, and I promised to write to her some
time and tell her of my home. She seems a very nice old lady.”
Col. Schuyler kissed her glowing cheek and called her a conscientious
little puss, and thought how very beautiful she was in her pretty
evening dress, with the wild flowers in her hair, and felt himself the
most fortunate man in England to possess so much youth and beauty.
A few days later found them again at Oakwood, where Godfrey met them at
the station and saluted Edith as his “mamma,” while his eyes danced with
mischief and fun. He did not tell her of the letter of dismay which had
come to him from home in answer to his own, wherein the charms of the
new mother had been so graphically described. But he laughed to himself
every time he thought of it, and what they were prepared for, and then
thought of the rare type of loveliness whom he teasingly called mamma,
and to whom he was as attentive as if he had been her lover instead of
her step-son. Robert Macpherson was still at Oakwood, and greatly to
Godfrey’s delight had decided upon going to America. “The very nicest
chap in the world,” Godfrey still continued to think him, in spite of
the hair parted in the middle, and the night-shirts ruffled and buttoned
behind.
“But something has come over the spirit of his dream,” he said to Edith,
when talking of him. “Ever since he came from visiting those friends of
his he has fits of melancholy and acts a good deal like a man in love,
but when I put it to him he denied it indignantly, and said no girl whom
he would have would ever marry him, and then he went straight off to see
the little Westbrooke who threw you that bouquet, you know. He is
wonderfully struck with her, and wants to paint her portrait as a fancy
piece, and call it ‘_La petite sœur_;’ but that Rogers dame guards her
pet like an old she-dragon, and will not let Gertie sit on any account,
even though I promised to be present at the sittings and see that fair
play was done.”
Edith smiled derisively, and felt that she did not blame Mrs. Rogers for
objecting to Godfrey Schuyler, with his saucy eyes and teasing ways, as
a protector for her child. The little girl was going out with them,
Godfrey said, and maybe Bob could study her a little on the ship. He had
made two or three sketches of her already, drawing from his memory, of
course, but none of them quite suited him. He must have her sit to him,
and he,—Godfrey,—thought it a shame for that Rogers woman to be so much
afraid of having her _protégée_ looked at by such nice chaps as himself
and Bob!
Edith had never fairly seen the child whom Robert Macpherson desired as
a model for “_La Sœur_,” but she felt a deep interest in her, both for
the blessing sent on her bridal day, and because of the strong affection
the child had inspired in Mrs. Barrett, who seemed to feel worse at the
thought of parting with her than with Edith herself.
The first meeting between mother and daughter had been rather cool and
constrained, for Edith had lost confidence in her parent’s integrity,
and could not help showing it. Still she was about to leave her, and at
the last, when she went to say good-by, her manner softened greatly, for
in spite of all it was her mother whom she kissed with many tears, and
who herself broke down and cried, when the last farewell was said, and
Edith went from her door forever. But Mrs. Barrett did not sob as
pitifully then as when an hour later Gertie Westbrooke came and hung
about her neck so lovingly, and said:
“I am sorry to leave you alone. I wish you would go too.”
Edith had not said that; Edith did not wish it, and Mrs. Barrett knew
why, but it hurt her none the less, and Gertie’s fond regrets and words
of love were very dear to her.
“I shall never forget you, never; and, maybe, if I am ever married, you
shall live with me, and be my grandma,” Gertie said, with a dim
perception that her friend’s heart was sore with a longing to go with
her daughter, who did not want her; and then Mrs. Barrett sobbed aloud,
and held the girl close to her bosom, and said:
“I never thought I could love a child as I love you, little Gertie. I am
a hard, wicked woman, no doubt, but I want you to be good, and surely I
may pray for that. God bless you, Gertie, and make your life as happy as
you are sweet and pure. Good-by.”
She put the child gently from her, and went quickly into her own room,
where she could be alone, and I am almost certain that the parting with
her daughter did not hurt her half as much as the parting with Gertie
Westbrooke.