HUSBAND AND WIFE.
He found his wife asleep, with her cheek resting on one hand, her hair
pushed back and lying in masses upon the pillow. He had seen her thus
many times, and he paused to look at her now, and thought how fair and
lovely she was even yet, with her thirty-four years and the marks of her
dangerous illness. Hers was a face which does not grow old, and to him
it seemed more beautiful than it had been on her bridal day, because he
loved her more than he did then, and knew how sweet she was. He did not
associate her in the least with Abelard Lyle when he was with her. It
was some other Edith who had been the heroine of that strange
romance,—it was Heloise Fordham, the girl at the cottage, who had shed
such bitter tears for the young carpenter, and not his wife, lying there
before him in that quiet sleep. She was Edith,—the mother of his little
boy, and he stooped at last and kissed her just as tenderly as if that
letter had never been read by him, and he had never heard of the Lyles
who lived in Alnwick.
The kiss roused her a little, and turning upon her pillow, her lips
moved, and he heard her say, “Abelard,” while a pang, keener, sharper,
and different from anything he had known, shot through his heart and
brought great drops of sweat to his brow and lips.
During the dreadful three days when he was “thinking it out” he had
experienced no jealousy of the dead youth, or for an instant believed
that Edith loved him still, or could have loved him had he lived till
now and met her for the first time in the fulness of her womanhood. But
she was dreaming of him sure, and Colonel Schuyler would have given much
to know the nature of the dream.
She was sleeping again, and he drew a chair beside her, and with his
eyes fastened upon her face, sat looking at her until he heard Gertie
light the gas in the adjoining room, preparatory to putting Arthur to
bed. This was something the child would allow no one else to do, and
now, when this was done, he insisted upon “tissin’ mamma just once”
before going to his crib.
“Yes, Gertie, let him come,” the colonel said, as he heard the clamor at
the door, and in his long night-gown the boy came in, screaming with joy
at sight of his father, and crying out, as he reached out his arms to
touch his mother’s face:
“Oh, mamma! mamma! papa’s tome! I’se so glad!—is you?”
Edith was awake now, and started when she saw the dark figure and
guessed whose it was.
“Papa’s tome!” Arthur said again, while Gertie, feeling sure that Mrs.
Schuyler would be disturbed, carried him forcibly away, and left the
husband and wife alone.
Then Colonel Schuyler arose, and bending over his wife, said softly:
“Edith, darling, I have come home. Are you glad to see me?” He did not
wait for her to answer, but continued: “They tell me you are better, and
I am so rejoiced. Kiss me, can you?”
She kissed him as he desired, and he felt her hot tears on his cheek as
he held his face to her. She was much better than when he left her.
Reason had come back again, and she could think of all that was past,
and what lay before her, and she shrank from it, and from her husband,
who must soon know everything, and who might turn from her in bitter
scorn and disgust. Oh, how she loved him now! and how her poor heart
ached when she thought of losing his respect and seeing his love for her
turning into hatred. For he did love her; she was sure of that, and
never had his manner been so full of manly tenderness as it was when he
came to her after an absence of three days and asked her if she was
glad. It seemed almost, she thought, as if he were pitying her, and he
was, and wishing he could help her tell him what he was certain she
wanted to. But it must not be that night; she was too weak to bear the
excitement. He must wait till she was stronger, he thought, and when at
last, as he supported her in his arms and stroked her face caressingly,
she said to him:
“Now, Howard, please lay me down, and do not come again till I send for
you;” he went away, but did not stay till she sent for him, lest it
should be too long. Every day he went to see her, and tried to seem
natural, and once, when she asked why he looked so thin and haggard, he
answered evasively and said he had a cold, and then went straight to the
cemetery, and, standing at Abelard’s grave, read the inscription aloud:
“James A. Lyle. Born in Alnwick, England. Died June 18th, 18—. Aged 23.”
Then he examined the stone and tried if it were firm in its place, and
kicked the snow and dead leaves from a tuft of daisies, which looked so
fresh and green that he stooped to examine it, and found to his surprise
a tiny white blossom hidden under the snow and the pile of leaves and
straw which Gertie had put there in the fall to protect the plants.
“Daisies under the snow on _his_ grave. It is very remarkable,” he said,
as he picked the little flower, and going back to the house he put it in
some water, and set it on the table in his room, where he watched it all
day long until it grew to be almost a phantom and he felt he could
endure it no longer.
He must speak to Edith or go mad himself. She was much better now, and
he would watch with her that night, and have it out when there was no
fear of interruption. But he did not tell her of his intention lest she
should oppose it, and she supposed her attendant was to be Gertie, who
frequently slept in the room with her.
Edith’s habit was to sleep from nine to twelve, but this night it was
nearly one when she awoke and looked about her. The gas was turned down
and the bright winter moonlight came through the window and fell in a
sheet upon the floor, making the room almost as light as day, and
showing plainly the figure sitting so motionless in the chair at the
foot of the bed. It was not Gertie, and Edith’s heart beat quickly when
she saw it was her husband, and thought:
“I must tell him,—I am able to bear it now.”
He knew she was awake, but waited for her to speak, trembling in every
joint as he wondered how he should begin to say that which he was there
to say, and wondering, too, how she would receive it. He had the little
daisy on the table near him, and when she stirred he took it in his hand
and fancied that it had grown to be the size of the magnolia blossoms he
saw once in the gardens at the South. His mind was surely getting
disordered, when Edith spoke and said:
“Howard, is that you? Are you watching with me?”
“Yes, Edith;” and he drew his chair closer to her, while she went on:
“Howard, do you love me, really, truly love me?”
“Yes,” he answered, “I really, truly love you. Why do you ask me,
Edith?”
“Because, Howard, because I,—I,—wanted to be sure. I’ve,—there is
something I must; oh, Howard, you do,—love me,—you do.”
It was a piteous cry, and had she been convicted of murder Colonel
Schuyler would have stood by her with that sound in his ears. She was
going to tell him, instead of his telling her! He was sure of it, and in
his anxiety to know how she would begin, he resolved not to help her at
first, but hear what she had to say. For a moment she lay very still,
with her hands locked tightly together, and he knew that she was
praying, for he caught the words “Help me,” as they came from her white
lips. And heaven did help her, and the iron fingers were held back and
her respiration was unimpeded, save by strong emotion when she at last
began:
“Howard, do you remember the day when we were married, and I fainted in
my dressing-room before going to the train?”
It was coming now, sure, and he replied:
“Yes, Edith, I remember it; your mother said it was in some way
connected with that _affaire du cœur_.”
“Yes, Howard, it was. Hold my hand, please, and hold it tight; till you
feel your love for me going away.”
He took her hand and held it fast, while she continued:
“And do you remember the little inn, and the pleasant night, and the
perfume of the flowers in the yard and the fresh hay on the lawn, and
you sitting on the balcony when I came to tell you something, which you
refused to hear?”
“Yes, Edith, I remember it. Does one forget his wedding day so easily
that I should forget that,” he said; and Edith went on:
“You asked me to call you Howard, and I said, wait till I have told you
what might make a difference, but you would not listen. You were
satisfied, you said, and if there was anything more you did not wish to
hear it, and you promised that whatever came in the future you would
have faith in me and believe I meant to do right. Howard, there _was_
something more, a terrible something, and I must tell it to you now, but
draw the curtain, please; shut out the moonlight and turn off the gas.
I’d rather be in the dark, and not see your face, when your love begins
to turn to hate.”
It would be cruel to let her go further. He had heard enough to satisfy
him that a full confession was to be made, and without dropping the
curtain or turning the gas lower he leaned over her, and said:
“One question, Edith, please; do you love me now better than you did on
our wedding day? Is there no regret in your heart for that early lover?
Tell me truly, Edith.”
“No, not the way you mean. Regret there is, it is true, but not that
way. The love I had for him has been overshadowed by a later and
mightier love; and, I can truly say, few wives have ever loved their
husbands as I love you, and that makes it so hard to tell you now when I
want your love so much. Oh, Howard, just once, for the sake of all the
happiness we have had together, kiss me and hold me in your arms as you
used to do. You’ll never hold me so again, but this once do not refuse.”
He wound his arms around her and pressed her closely to him, and kissed
her brow and lips, and she felt his tears upon her face when at last he
released her and put her gently back upon the pillow.
“Thank you, Howard. I’ll never ask you again,” she said, for she
believed it their farewell; but he knew it was not, and when she was
recovered a little he summoned all his energies, and said:
“Edith, you seem to be afraid that what you have to tell me will make me
love you less. I promise you that it shall not, and in token of that
promise I have brought you this daisy which I found blossoming under the
snow on Abelard’s grave, as if it were a message from him to mediate
between us.”
He spoke slowly and held up the little white blossom before the eyes
which looked at it and him so wonderingly.
“What do you mean?” Edith asked, faintly, and he replied:
“I mean that you have no need to tell the story, for I know it all!”
There was a sudden gasping for breath, a throwing back of the
bed-clothes as if their weight oppressed her, and then Edith asked:
“What do you know?”
“I know that you were once Heloise Fordham, and lived in the cottage by
the bridge, and were the wife of Abelard Lyle, and had a little daughter
born in London, whom your mother carried away when you were insensible,
and that you wrote all this in a letter to me before we were married,
and supposed I got that letter until our wedding day, when you learned
how we had both been deceived, and you tried so hard to tell me. You see
I _do_ know it all,” he continued. “I accidentally found your letter in
the pocket where you put it with Arthur’s whistle. It was directed to me
and I read it, and in my first surprise and bewilderment went away to be
alone and think it out. I did think it out, and exonerated you entirely,
and have come back to tell you so and assure you of my continued love
and respect. Poor darling, how much you must have suffered, but it is
all over now. Your secret is known to me, and that is all that is
necessary. It shall die——”
He stopped short, struck by the look of pain and anguish on Edith’s
face, and the low moan which escaped her as she drew herself away from
him to the far side of the bed. He did not know then that her child
still lived; he could not, for it was not thus written in her letter,
and throwing up her hands, she cried:
“Oh, Howard, Howard, you do not know the whole, neither did I till
mother came and told me. She went to the hospital after baby, as I said
in my letter, and when she came back she told me baby was dead, and I
believed her, nor ever had another thought until the night I was with
her and you found me fainting at her feet. She could not die with that
lie on her soul, and she told me the truth at last. Baby was not dead.
She was adopted,—taken by some poor woman who lived in Dorset
Street,—the number is in that letter or on the envelope somewhere, and
the name Stover. Howard, my daughter is alive, and now you know the
whole.”
He did not speak, though he shivered from head to foot as there came
over him a dim foreshadowing of what Edith meant to do and what he must
not prevent her doing. He saw the right as clearly as she did, and knew
that were he in her place he should do the same; but the flesh was very
weak, and he staggered, and grew faint and sick as he thought of letting
the whole world know who his Edith was, and how he had been deceived. If
the child was found and acknowledged all this must be, unless indeed
they both might think it best to keep it still a secret. They could care
for the girl just the same, adopt her, perhaps, and never let her nor
any one know just what she was to them. Edith certainly would concede so
much to his feelings. She would not thrust this great humiliation upon
him in the face of all the world. And if they never found the girl,—but
he dared not allow himself to consider that possibility for a moment.
Something told him they would find her, and he caught himself wondering
how she looked, if she was at all like her mother; or had she lived so
long with the people in Dorset Street that every vestige of grace and
beauty and refinement had been destroyed, and she was like her aunt,
Jenny Nesbit, in far-off Alnwick, with her bare arms and dreadful slang.
How he dreaded her, and how his heart beat with shame at the thought of
bringing her there as an associate for his wife and Gertie! Oh, if she
could prove to be like Gertie, he thought; but she would not, and never
in all his life had he shrunk from a living thing as he shrunk from that
unknown step-daughter of whose existence he had never dreamed until
within the last few minutes.
“Howard!” Edith said at last, but he did not answer. “Howard,” she said
again, “now that you know the whole you will love me still?”
“Yes, Edith,” he said; and she continued, “And you will help me find her
just as soon as I am able to cross the sea. Will it be in a week, do you
think, or two? I am a great deal better than I was yesterday, and now
that you know it I shall get well so fast. Do you think we can start in
a week?”
“No, Edith, I know you cannot. A sea voyage in the winter is always
rough, and you could not bear it yet,” was his reply, and Edith
assented, and thought how hard she would try to get well so as to go on
that strange errand of hunting up a child lost almost nineteen years.
Anon there crept into her mind a suspicion of what it would be to her
husband to have the story known, and she said to him pityingly:
“Howard, I am sorry for you. It will be so hard for you to have the
people know.”
“Yes, Edith, very hard at first; but you surely need not say anything
until you know whether you find her,” the colonel replied, and Edith
acquiesced, and longed for the time when she should be able to endure
the excitement and fatigue of the voyage and the search, and the
finding-perhaps of the object sought.
She was very tired and did not talk any more that night, but fell into a
quiet sleep, while her husband sat by her, feeling as if he would never
sleep again, or know a moment’s gladness. How old and tired and worn he
looked the next day, and how he stooped in walking, as if the burden
were greater than he could bear. Sometimes he thought it was, and once
the tempter whispered that the cold river just in sight from his window
would be a better place than his beautiful home after all was known. But
Col. Schuyler was too brave a man to die a suicidal death in order to
escape a trouble. “Better live and face it,” he thought, and then began
to feel a restless impatience to have the matter settled, to know the
worst as soon as possible, and he was almost as glad as Edith when she
was pronounced able to undertake the voyage. Why they were going to
England in the winter they did not say, and we naturally supposed it
might be to benefit Edith and pay a visit to Glenthorpe, where Emma was
so happy. Norah was not going; Edith could get a maid across the water,
she said, and she preferred leaving Norah to look after little Arthur.
To Gertie, however, the principal care of the child was given, and she
promised to be faithful to her trust, and care for the little boy as if
he were her brother.
And so one day in January, when the Oceanic sailed out of the harbor of
New York, Edith was in the ship going blindfolded to seek the very
blessing which, all unknown, she left behind.