MRS. CHURCHILL AND EDNA.
It was Saturday morning, and Mrs. Churchill was feeling very lonely and
desolate, and missing her late companion more than she did Roy.
“It is strange how she has grown into my love, and how much she is to
me,” she said softly to herself, as she feared that her dress was not
quite as it should be, and her hair somewhat awry.
She had depended altogether upon Miss Overton to care for her personal
appearance, and felt her absence more sensibly for it.
“A letter, ma’am,” her maid said, bringing it in and placing it in her
hand.
Mrs. Churchill was sure that Roy had written nothing which a third
person might not see, so she asked her maid to read it, and listened
with a strange feeling to what Roy said of Edna.
“Thanks: you may go now,” she said to her maid, who went out and left
her alone.
Roy would be there Monday night, and with him Charlie’s wife.
“Poor Charlie,” she whispered to herself, and tried to believe that the
tears which rolled down her cheeks were prompted by sorrow for him,
instead of sorrow for the fact that Edna was found and was coming there
to live. “I mean to be glad, and I am glad. I am going to like her, and
I do like her,” she said to herself; but she did not sleep much that
night, and nearly all the next day she sat out by Charlie’s grave,
trying by thinking of him and his love for Edna Browning, to awaken a
feeling of genuine affection in her own breast.
But she could not do it. The most she could effect was a determination
to be very kind to the girl, and to make it as pleasant for her as
possible. To this end she gave orders that the largest and best
sleeping-room in the house should be prepared for her on Monday, and as
far as her sight would admit, gave it her personal inspection.
“If it was only Miss Overton coming to-night, how happy I should be,”
she said, when after all was done, and the day nearly gone, she sat down
by the fire in the library to wait for the travellers.
It was very quiet and lonely there, and she fell asleep at last, and did
not hear the carriage when it went to the station nor when it returned.
But Roy soon found her, and putting both his arms around her, kissed her
forehead lovingly.
“Wake up, mother,” he said, and there was a ring of some great joy in
the tone of his voice. “Wake up, mother; I have brought Edna to you.
Here she is,—right here; let me put her hand in yours and see if you
have ever felt one like it.”
Roy was greatly excited, and something of his nervousness communicated
itself to his mother, who trembled like a leaf, and whose sight seemed
dimmer than ever as she turned her eyes toward the little figure, the
rustle of whose dress she heard, and whose hands took hers in their own
and held them fast, while a voice, which thrilled through every nerve,
said, “Mother, dear mother, Charlie’s mother and mine,—the only one I
ever knew! You liked me some, I know, as Miss Overton; love me, won’t
you, as Edna, and forgive the deception.”
Mrs. Churchill was pale as death, and for an instant could not speak;
but she held close to the soft hands, and bent her face down over the
young girl who had knelt before her, and whose head was in her lap.
“What is it? How is it? I do not understand at all. Roy, tell me what it
means. You bring me one you say is Edna, Charlie’s wife; and she calls
me mother with Miss Overton’s voice. Is it, can it be they are the same?
That the girl I already love as my daughter is really mine?”
“Yes, mother, really yours in more senses than one,” Roy said; and then
as briefly as possible he told Edna’s story, and why she had come to
them in disguise, and how he had loved her even when pledged to another,
and that she had promised to love him in return, and was to be his wife.
“Oh, I am so glad, so glad! Kiss me, Edna,” Mrs. Churchill said,
adopting the new name at once, and holding her daughter to her in an
embrace which assured Roy that all was well between his mother and his
future wife. “You would think me foolish if you knew how I did dread
your coming here,” Mrs. Churchill said to Edna when she was a little
composed and could talk about the matter calmly. “I was afraid it would
not be so pleasant for Miss Overton and myself with a third party, but I
am so glad now, so glad.
“It is so nice to have you back, and to know you will never go again,”
she continued; and then Edna told her of her promise to Aunt Jerry to
return to Allen’s Hill and remain there for a time at least before her
marriage.
“She has some claim on me; she is all alone, and I must do so much for
her,” Edna said, while Mrs. Churchill did feel a little chill when she
thought of the woman with the dreadful name who had written so
familiarly to her, and who was Edna’s aunt and had a claim on her.
But she loved the niece well enough to tolerate the aunt, and suggested
that the latter should come there if she wished for her niece’s society.
But Edna knew this would never do, and persisted in her plan of
returning to the Hill after a few days at Leighton and a flying visit to
Uncle Phil. Mrs. Burton, who called next day, received the intelligence
quite as well as could be expected. The fact that Georgie had known who
Edna was, and had indorsed her too, and even spoken to Roy about her,
and given her consent, went a long way toward reassuring her. What
Georgie sanctioned was right, and she kissed Edna kindly, and cried over
her a good deal, and said she should like her for Georgie’s sake, and
hoped she would try to _fill_ poor Georgie’s place in Roy’s heart, and
be a comfort to Mrs. Churchill.
In order to keep Edna with them as long as possible, Roy telegraphed for
Uncle Phil to come to Leighton, and the next day’s train brought the old
man with his quaint sayings and original style of dress. He knew how it
was going to end, and was not surprised, and he wished Edna much joy,
and congratulated Roy upon his good fortune in securing so great a
happiness.
“The neatest, prettiest girl in the world, with the trimmest ankles
except one,—that’s Maude; and Roy, Edna must be married from my house,
and in my church. I claim that as my right. Never should have built the
pesky thing that’s been such a plague to me if it had not been for Maude
and Edna, and that sermon about the synagogue. Not that I’m sorry,
though the bother has worn me some thin. We’ve got a nice man, too, now;
had him _two weeks_, and like him tip-top. Neither one nor the other;
Ritual nor anti-ritual, but common sense. Don’t mind Ruth Gardner more
than if she was a gnat. Yes, yes; a good fellow, who speaks to
everybody, slaps you on your back sometimes, and acts as if he liked the
old man; and he must marry Dotty. She’ll be the first bride in church,
and I’ll have it trimmed if it costs me my farm. Yes, Dot must go from
my house.”
Edna favored this, and as Roy did not object, it was arranged that after
a few weeks stay with Aunt Jerry, Edna should go to Rocky Point and be
married in Uncle Phil’s church. Christmas was the very latest time of
which Roy would hear. “Georgie said I was not to wait,” was the argument
which he used with all, and which finally prevailed; and so, after a
week at Leighton, Edna returned to Allen’s Hill, accompanied by Roy,
who, during the six weeks that she staid there, spent nearly half his
time there and on the road. “He was as tickled as a boy with a new top,”
Aunt Jerry said, but she liked him nevertheless, and paid him every
possible attention, and made Parker House rolls and Graham muffins
alternately, and used her best dishes every day, and hired a little girl
to wait upon the table when he was there, because he “was used to such
fol-de-rol,” and it pleased Edna too. Aunt Jerry seemed greatly changed;
and if uniform kindness and gentleness of manner could avail to blot out
all remembrance of a past which had not been pleasant, it was surely
blotted from Edna’s mind, and she felt only love and gratitude for the
peculiar woman who stood upon the door-step and cried when at last the
carriage which was to take Roy and Edna to the train, drove away from
her door and left her all alone.