THE MOMENTOUS RESOLVE.
Early on the following morning Miss Plympton called on Edith, and was
shocked to see the changes that had been made in her by that one night.
She did not regard so much the pallor of her face, the languor of her
manner, and her unelastic step, but rather the new expression that
appeared upon her countenance, the thoughtfulness of her brow, the deep
and earnest abstraction of her gaze. In that one night she seemed to
have stepped from girlhood to maturity. It was as though she had lived
through the intervening experience. Years had been crowded into hours.
She was no longer a school-girl--she was a woman.
Miss Plympton soon retired, with the promise to come again when Edith
should feel stronger. Breakfast was sent up, and taken away untasted,
and at noon Miss Plympton once more made her appearance.
“I have been thinking about many things,” said Edith, after some
preliminary remarks, “and have been trying to recall what I can of my
own remembrance of papa. I was only eight years old, but I have a pretty
distinct recollection of him, and it has been strengthened by his
portrait, which I always have had. Of my mother I have a most vivid
remembrance, and I have never forgotten one single circumstance
connected with her last illness. I remember your arrival, and my
departure from home after all was over. But there is one thing which I
should like very much to ask you about. Did none of my mother's
relatives come to see her during this time?”
“Your mother's relatives acted very badly indeed, dear. From the first
they were carried away by the common belief in your dear father's guilt.
Some of them came flying to your mother. She was very ill at the time,
and these relatives brought her the first news which she received. It
was a severe blow. They were hard-hearted or thoughtless enough to
denounce your father to her, and she in her weak state tried to defend
him. All this produced so deplorable an effect that she sank rapidly.
Her relatives left her in this condition. She tried to be carried to
your dear father in his prison, but could not bear the journey. They
took her as far as the gates, but she fainted there, and had to be taken
back to the house. So then she gave up. She knew that she was going to
die, and wrote to me imploring me to come to her. She wished to intrust
you to me. I took you from her arms--”
Miss Plympton paused, and Edith was silent for some time.
“So,” said she, in a scarce audible voice, “darling mamma died of a
broken heart?”
Miss Plympton, said nothing. A long silence followed.
“Had my father no friends,” asked Edith, “or no relatives?”
“He had no relatives,” said Miss Plympton, “but an only sister. She
married a Captain Dudleigh, now Sir Lionel Dudleigh. But it was a very
unhappy marriage, for they separated. I never knew the cause; and
Captain Dudleigh took it so much to heart that he went abroad. He could
not have heard of your father's misfortunes till all was over and it was
too late. But in any case I do not see what he could have done, unless
he had contrived to shake your father's resolve. As to his wife, I have
never heard of her movements, and I think she must have died long ago.
Neither she nor her husband is mentioned at the trial. If they had been
in England, it seems to me that they would have come forward as
witnesses in some way; so I think they were both out of the country. Sir
Lionel is alive yet, I think, but he has always lived out of the world.
I believe his family troubles destroyed his happiness, and made him
somewhat misanthropical. I have sometimes thought in former years that
he might make inquiries about you, but he has never done so to my
knowledge, though perhaps he has tried without being able to hear where
you were. After all, he would scarcely know where to look. On the whole,
I consider Sir Lionel the only friend you have, Edith darling, besides
myself, and if any trouble should ever arise, he would be the one to
whom I should apply for assistance, or at least advice.”
Edith listened to this, and made no comment, but after another
thoughtful pause she said,
“About this Wiggins--have you ever heard any thing of him since the--the
trial?”
Miss Plympton shook her head.
“No,” said she, “except from those formal business notes. You have seen
them all, and know what they are.”
“Have you ever formed any opinion of him more favorable than what you
wrote in those notes?”
“I do not think that I wrote any thing more than suspicions or
surmises,” said Miss Plympton; “and as far as suspicions are concerned,
I certainly have not changed my mind. The position which he occupied
during the trial, and ever since, excites my suspicions against him. All
others suffered; he alone was benefited. And now, too, when all is over,
he seems still in his old position--perhaps a better one than ever--the
agent of the estates, and assuming to some extent a guardianship over
you. At least he gives directions about you, for he says you are to go
back to Dalton Hall. But in that he shall find himself mistaken, for I
will never allow you to put yourself in his power.”
“Have you ever seen him?” asked Edith.
“No.”
She bent down her head, and leaned her forehead on her hand.
“Well,” said she, in a low voice, half to herself, “it don't matter; I
shall see him soon myself.”
“See him yourself!” said Miss Plympton, anxiously. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, I shall see him soon--when I get to Dalton Hall.”
“Dalton Hall?”
“Yes,” said Edith, simply, raising her head and looking calmly at Miss
Plympton.
“But you are not going to Dalton Hall.”
“There is no other place for me,” said Edith, sadly. “I am going--I am
going as soon as possible.”
“Oh no--oh no, darling; you are going to do nothing of the kind,” said
Miss Plympton. “I can not let you go. We all love you too dearly. This
is your home, and I now stand in the place of those whom you have lost.
You are never to leave me, Edith dearest.”
Edith sighed heavily, and shook her head.
“No,” she said, speaking in a low, melancholy voice--“no, I can not
stay. I can not meet my friends here again. I am not what I was
yesterday. I am changed. It seems as though some heavy weight has come
upon me. I must go away, and I have only one place to go to, and that is
my father's home.”
“My darling,” said Miss Plympton, drawing her chair close to Edith, and
twining her arms about her, “you must not talk so; you can not imagine
how you distress me. I can not let you go. Do not think of these
things. We all love you. Do not imagine that your secret will be
discovered. No one shall ever know it. In a few days you yourself will
feel different. The consciousness of your father's innocence will make
you feel more patient, and the love of all your friends will make your
life as happy as ever.”
“No,” said Edith, “I can not--I can not. You can not imagine how I
dread to see the face of any one of them. I shall imagine that they know
all; and I can not tell them. They will tease me to tell them my
troubles, and it will only worry me. No, for me to stay here is
impossible. I would go any where first.”
She spoke so firmly and decisively that Miss Plympton forbore to press
her further just then.
“At any rate, my darling,” said she, “you need not think of Dalton Hall.
I can find you other places which will be far more suitable to you in
every way. If it distresses you to stay here, I can find a happy home
for you, where you can stay till you feel able to return to us again.”
“There is no place,” said Edith, “where I can stay. I do not want to go
among strangers, or to strange places. I have a home, and that is the
only place that I can go to now. That home is familiar to me. I remember
it well. It is where I was born. Dear mamma's room is there, where I
used to sit with her and hear her voice. My dear papa and mamma were
happy there; and she died there. It has its own associations; and now
since this great sorrow has come, I long to go there. It seems the
fittest place for me.”
“But, my child,” said Miss Plympton, anxiously, “there is one thing that
you do not consider. Far be it from me to stand in the way of any of
your wishes, especially at a time like this, but is seems to me that a
return to Dalton Hall just now is hardly safe.”
“Safe!”
Edith spoke in a tone of surprise, and looked inquiringly at Miss
Plympton.
“I don't like this John Wiggins,” said Miss Plympton, uneasily; “I am
afraid of him.”
“But what possible cause can there be of fear?” asked Edith.
“Oh, I don't know,” said Miss Plympton, with a sigh; “no one can tell.
If my suspicions are at all correct, he is a man who might be very
dangerous. He has control of all the estates, and--”
“But for that very reason I would go home,” said Edith, “if there were
no stronger inducement, to do what I can to put an end to his
management.”
“How could you do any thing with him?” asked Miss Plympton; “you so
young and inexperienced.”
“I don't know,” said Edith, simply; “but the estates are mine, and not
his; and Dalton Hall is mine; and if I am the owner, surely I ought to
have some power. There are other agents in the world, and other lawyers.
They can help me, if I wish help. We are not living in the Middle Ages
when some one could seize one's property by the strong hand and keep it.
There is law in the country, and Wiggins is subject to it.”
“Oh, my child,” said Miss Plympton, anxiously, “I am terrified at the
very thought of your being in that man's power. You can not tell what
things are possible; and though there is law, as you say, yet it does
not always happen that one can get justice.”
“That I know, or ought to know,” said Edith, in a mournful voice; “I
have learned that this past night only too well.”
“It seems to me,” said Miss Plympton, with the same anxiety in her
voice, “that to return to Dalton Hall will be to put yourself in some
way into his power. If he is really the unscrupulous, crafty, and
scheming man that I have suspected him to be, he will not find it
difficult to weave some plot around you which may endanger your whole
life. There is no safety in being bear that man. Be mistress of Dalton
Hall, but do not go there till you have driven him away. It seems by his
last letters as though he is living there now, and if you go there you
will find yourself in some sense under his control.”
“Well,” said Edith, “I do not doubt his willingness to injure me if he
can, or to weave a plot which shall ruin me; but, after all, such a
thing takes time. He can not ruin me in one day, or in one week, and so
I think I can return to Dalton Hall in safety, and be secure for a few
days at least.”
Miss Plympton made some further objections, but the vague fears to which
she gave expression met with no response from Edith, who looked upon her
journey home in a very sober and commonplace light, and refused to let
her imagination terrify her. Her argument that Wiggins would require
some time to injure her was not easy to answer, and gradually Miss
Plympton found herself forced to yield to Edith's determination. In fact,
there was much in that resolve which was highly natural. Edith, in the
first place, could not bear to resume her intimacy with her
school-mates, for reasons which she had stated already; and, in addition
to this, she had a strong and irresistible longing to go to the only
place that was now her home. There she hoped to find peace, and gain
consolation in the midst of the scenes of her childhood and the memories
of her parents. These were her chief motives for action now; but in
addition to these she had others. The chief was a strong desire to
dismiss Wiggins from his post of agent.
The detestation which she had already conceived for this man has been
noticed in a previous chapter. It had grown during past years out of a
habit of her mind to associate with him the apparent alienation of her
father. But now, since her father's past life was explained, this John
Wiggins appeared in a new light. The dark suggestions of Miss Plympton,
her suspicions as to his character and motives, had sunk deep into the
soul of Edith, and taken root there. She had not yet been able to bring
herself to think that this John Wiggins was himself the treacherous
friend, but she was on the high-road to that belief, and already had
advanced far enough to feel convinced that Wiggins could have at least
saved her father if he had chosen. One thing, however, was evident to
all the world, and that was what Miss Plympton laid so much stress on,
the fact that he had profited by her father's ruin, and had won gold and
influence and position out of her father's tears and agonies and death.
And so, while she longed to go home for her own consolation, there also
arose within her another motive to draw her there--the desire to see
this Wiggins, to confront him, to talk to him face to face, to drive him
out from the Dalton estates, and if she could not vindicate her father's
memory, at least put an end to the triumph of one of his false friends.
The result of this interview was, then, that Edith should return to
Dalton Hall; and as she was unwilling to wait, she decided to leave in
two days. Miss Plympton was to go with her.
“And now,” said Miss Plympton, “we must write at once and give notice of
your coming.”
“Write?” said Edith, coldly, “to whom?”
“Why, to--to Wiggins, I suppose,” said Miss Plympton, with some
hesitation.
“I refuse to recognize Wiggins,” said Edith. “I will not communicate
with him in any way. My first act shall be to dismiss him.”
“But you must send some notice to some one; you must have some
preparations made.”
“Oh, I shall not need any elaborate preparations; a room will be
sufficient. I should not wish to encounter the greetings of this man, or
see him complacently take credit to himself for his attentions to
me--and his preparations. No; I shall go and take things as I find them,
and I should prefer to go without notice.”
At this Miss Plympton seemed a little more uneasy than before, and made
further efforts to change Edith's decision, but in vain. She was, in
fact, more perplexed at Edith herself than at any other thing; for this
one who but a day before had been a gentle, tractable, docile, gay,
light-hearted girl had suddenly started up into a stern, self-willed
woman, with a dauntless spirit and inflexible resolve.
“There is only one more thing that I have to mention,” said Edith, as
Miss Plympton rose to go. “It is a favor that I have to ask of you. It
is this;” and she laid her hand on the papers of the report, which were
lying rolled up in a parcel on the table. “Have you any further use for
this? Will you let me keep it?”
“The need that I had for it,” said Miss Plympton, “was over when I gave
it to you. I prepared it for you, and preserved it for you, and now
that you have it, its work is accomplished. It is yours, dearest, for
you to do as you choose with it.”
To this Edith murmured some words of thanks, and taking up the parcel,
proceeded to tie it up more carefully.
* * * * *