NEWS OF EDNA.
Mrs. Churchill had never been strong, and the suddenness of her son’s
death, together with the manner in which it occurred, shocked her
nervous system to such an extent that for weeks she kept her room,
seeing scarcely any one outside her own family except Mrs. Burton and
Georgie.
As another proof of her utter unselfishness, Georgie had postponed her
Chicago trip for an indefinite time, and devoted herself to Mrs.
Churchill with all a daughter’s love and care.
But alas for Edna! Her case was not in the best of hands; indeed, Roy
could hardly have chosen one more unlikely to “bring his mother round”
than Georgie Burton. That Edna would be in her way at Leighton, Georgie
had decided from the moment she had looked upon the great, sad eyes
brimming with tears, and the childish mouth, quivering in a way which
made her big-hearted brother Jack long to kiss the grief away and fold
the little creature in his arms as a mother would her child.
She seemed a mere child to both Jack and Georgie, the latter of whom in
her surprise at hearing she was Charlie Churchill’s wife had asked how
old she was.
“Seventeen last May,” was the reply, and Georgie thought with a sigh of
the years which lay between herself and that sweet age of girlhood.
Roy liked young girls, she had heard him say so, and knew that he
treated Maude Somerton, of nineteen, with far more familiarity than he
did Georgie Burton, of,—she never told how many years. And Roy would
like Edna, first as a sister and then, perhaps, as something nearer, for
that the girl was artful and ambitious, she did not doubt, and to have
her at Leighton was far too dangerous an experiment. In this conviction
she was strengthened after her talk with Roy, and whenever Mrs.
Churchill mentioned her, as she frequently did, wondering what she would
do, Georgie always made some reply calculated to put down any feelings
of pity or interest which might be springing up in the mother’s heart.
But she never said a word _against_ Edna; everything was in her favor,
and still she managed to harm her just the same, and to impress Mrs.
Churchill with the idea that she could not have her there, and so the
tide was setting in strongly against poor, widowed, friendless Edna.
It was two weeks now since the accident, and through Jack Heyford,
Georgie had heard that she was in Chicago with Mrs. Dana, that she had
been and still was sick, and Jack didn’t know what she was going to do
if the Leightons did not help her. Georgie did not read this letter
either to Roy or his mother. She merely said that Jack had seen Edna,
who was still with Mrs. Dana.
“Does he write what she intends doing?” Roy asked, and Georgie replied
that he did not, and then Roy fell into a fit of musing, and was glad he
had sent Charlie five hundred dollars, and he wished he had made the
check larger, as he certainly would have done had he known what was to
follow.
“Poor Charlie!” he sighed. “He made me a world of trouble, but I wish I
had him back;” and then he remembered the unpaid bills sent to him from
Canandaigua since his brother’s death, and of which his mother must not
know, as some of them were contracted for Edna.
There was a jeweller’s bill for the wedding ring, and a set of coral,
with gold watch and chain, the whole amounting to two hundred dollars.
And Roy paid it, and felt glad that Edna had the watch, and hoped it was
pretty, and wished Charlie had chosen a more expensive one.
He was beginning to feel greatly interested in this unknown sister, and
was thinking intently of her one morning, when Russell brought him his
letters, one of which was from Edna herself. Hastily tearing it open he
read:
“Mr. Robert Leighton: Dear Sir,—Please find inclosed $300 of the $500
you sent to Charlie.
“I should not have kept any of the money, only there were some expenses
to pay, and I was sick and had not anything. As soon as I get well and
can find something to do, I shall pay it all back with interest. Believe
me, Mr. Leighton, I certainly will.
Yours truly,
“EDNA BROWNING CHURCHILL.
“P.S.—You will find my note inclosed.”
And there, sure enough, it was, Edna’s note to Robert Leighton, Esq.:
“CHICAGO, October 18, 18—.
“For value received I promise to pay to Robert Leighton, or bearer, the
sum of two hundred dollars, with interest at seven per cent per annum,
from date.
“EDNA BROWNING CHURCHILL.”
Roy read these lines more than once, and his eyes were moist with tears
as he said aloud:
“Brave little woman. I like you now, if I never did before.”
He did not want the money; he wished in his heart that Edna had it, and
more too; and yet he was in some way glad she had sent it back and
written him that letter, which gave him an insight into her character.
She was not a mere saucy, frolicsome girl, given to making caricatures
of men in poke bonnets; there was about her a courage and energy, and
strict integrity, which he liked, and he felt some curiosity to know if
she _would_ pay the two hundred dollars as she had promised to do.
“I believe I’ll let her alone for a while till I see what is in her,” he
said, “and, when I am satisfied, I’ll go for her myself and bring her
home. My broken leg will be well long before she can earn that money.
Brave little woman!”
Roy sent this letter to his mother but withheld the one which came to
him next day from Edna, full of intense mortification and earnest
entreaties that he would not think her base enough to have accepted
Charlie’s presents if she had known they were not paid for. Somebody had
written to her that the jeweller in Canandaigua had a bill against
Charlie for a watch and chain, and coral set, which had been bought with
promise of immediate payment.
“They say the bill will be sent to you,” Edna wrote, “and then you will
despise me more than you do now, perhaps. But, Mr. Leighton, I did _not_
dream of such a thing. Charlie gave them to me the morning we were
married, and I did not think it wrong to take them then. I never took
anything before, except a little locket with Charlie’s face in it. If
you have not paid that bill, please don’t. I can manage it somehow. I
know Mr. Greenough, and he’ll take the things back, perhaps. But if you
have already paid it I shall pay you. Don’t think I won’t, for I
certainly shall. I can work and earn money somehow. It may be a good
while, but I shall do it in time, and I want you to trust me and believe
that I never meant to be mean, or married Charlie because he had money,
for I didn’t.”
Here something was scratched out, and after it Edna wrote:
“Perhaps you will get a wrong impression if I do not make some
explanation. I did not care one bit for the money I supposed Charlie
had, but maybe if I had known he had nothing but what you gave him, I
should not have been married so soon. I should have told him to wait
till we were older and had something of our own. I am so sorry, and I
wish Mrs. Churchill had Charlie back and that I was Edna Browning. I
don’t want her to hate me, for she is Charlie’s mother, and I did love
him so much.
“Yours, E. B. CHURCHILL.”
This was Edna’s second letter to Roy, who felt the great lumps rising in
his throat as he read it, and who would like to have choked the person
who could have been malicious enough to tell Edna about those bills.
“She did not mention the ring,” he said. “I hope she knows nothing of
that.”
But Edna did know of it, and the bitterest pang of all was connected
with that golden symbol which seemed to her now like a mockery. She
could not, however, confess to Roy that her _wedding ring_ was among the
articles unpaid for, so she made no mention of it, and Roy hoped she
knew nothing of it and never would.
“I’ll write to her to-day,” he said, “and tell her to keep that watch as
a present from me, and I’ll tell her too that by and by I am coming out
to bring her home. She is made of the right kind of metal to suit me.
Brave little woman.”
This seemed to be the name by which Roy thought of Edna now, and he
repeated it to himself as he went over her letter again, and pitied her
so much, but he did not write to her that day as he intended doing. He
was rather indolent in matters not of a strictly business nature. He
hated letter-writing at any time, and especially now when exertion of
any kind was painful to him; and so the days came and went until a week
was gone, and still Edna’s letter was unanswered, and “the brave little
woman” was not quite so much in Roy’s mind, for he had other and graver
matters to occupy his attention and engross his thoughts. His mother was
very sick, and Georgie staid with her all the time, and Maude Somerton
came on Friday night and remained till Monday morning, and Roy himself
hobbled to her room on crutches, and sat beside her for hours, while the
fever burned itself out, and she talked deliriously of her lost boy and
the girl who had led him to ruin.
“That girl will have two lives to answer for instead of one, I fear,”
Georgie said, with a sorrowful shake of the head, and an appealing look
at Roy, who made no reply.
He did not charge Edna with his brother’s death, and would feel no
animosity toward her even if his mother died, but he could not then
speak for her, and brave Georgie’s look of indignation against “that
girl.” This, however, Maude Somerton did, and her blue eyes grew dark
with passionate excitement as she turned fiercely upon Georgie and said:
“Better call her a murderess at once, and have her hung as a warning to
all young girls with faces pretty enough to tempt a man to run away with
them. You know, Georgie Burton, she wasn’t a bit more to blame than
Charlie himself, and it’s a shame for one woman to speak so of another.”
To this outburst Georgie made no reply, but Roy in his heart blessed the
young girl for her defence of Edna, and made a mental memorandum of a
Christmas present he meant to buy for Maude.