EDITH HASTINGS GOES TO COLLINGWOOD.
The question Edith had asked herself, standing by her chamber
window, was answered by Grace Atherton sitting near her own. "Yes,
the bride of Richard Harrington MUST be perfectly happy, if bride
indeed there were." She was beginning to feel some doubt upon this
point, for strain her eyes as she might, she had not been able to
detect the least signs of femininity in the passing carriage, and
hope whispered that the brightest dream she had ever dreamed might
yet be realized.
"I'll let him know to-morrow, that I'm here," she said, as she
shook out her wavy auburn hair, and thought, with a glow of pride,
how beautiful it was. "I'll send Edith with my compliments and a
bouquet of flowers to the bride. She'll deliver them better than
any one else, if I can once make her understand what I wish her to
do."
Accordingly, the next morning, as Edith sat upon the steps of the
kitchen door, talking to herself, Grace appeared before her with a
tastefully arranged bouquet, which she bade her take with her
compliments to Mrs. Richard Harrington, if there was such a body,
and to Mr. Richard Harrington if there were not.
"Do you understand?" she asked, and Edith far more interested in
her visit to Collingwood than in what she was to do when she
reached there, replied,
"Of course I do; I'm to give your compliments;" and she jammed her
hand into the pocket of her gingham apron, as if to make sure the
compliments were there. "I'm to give them to MR. Richard, if there
is one, and the flowers to Mrs. Richard, if there ain't!"
Grace groaned aloud, while old Rachel, the colored cook, who on
all occasions was Edith's champion, removed her hands from the
dough she was kneading and coming towards them, chimed in, "She
ain't fairly got it through her har, Miss Grace. She's such a
substracted way with her that you mostly has to tell her twicet,"
and in her own peculiar style Rachel succeeded in making the
"substracted" child comprehend the nature of her errand.
"Now don't go to blunderin'," was Rachel's parting injunction, as
Edith left the yard and turned in the direction of Collingwood.
It was a mellow September morning, and after leaving the main road
and entering the gate of Collingwood, the young girl lingered by
the way, admiring the beauty of the grounds, and gazing with
feelings of admiration upon the massive building, surrounded by
majestic maples, and basking so quietly in the warm sunlight. At
the marble fountain she paused for a long, long time, talking to
the golden fishes which darted so swiftly past each other, and
wishing she could take them in her hand "just to see them squirm."
"I mean to catch ONE any way," she said, and glancing nervously at
the windows to make sure no Mrs. Richard was watching her, she
bared her round, plump arm, and thrust it into the water, just as
a footstep sounded near.
Quickly withdrawing her hand and gathering up her bouquet, she
turned about and saw approaching her one of Collingwood's ghosts.
She knew him in a moment, for she had heard him described too
often to mistake that white-haired, bent old man for other than
Capt. Harrington. He did not chide her as she supposed he would,
neither did he seem in the least surprised to see her there. On
the contrary, his withered, wrinkled face brightened with a look
of eager expectancy, as he said to her, "Little girl, can you tell
me where Charlie is?"
"Charlie?" she repeated, retreating a step or two as he approached
nearer and seemed about to lay his hand upon her hair, for her
bonnet was hanging down her back, and her wild gipsy locks fell in
rich profusion about her face. "I don't know any boy by that name,
I'm nobody but Edith Hastings, Mrs. Atherton's waiting maid, and
she don't let me play with boys. Only Tim Doolittle and I went
huckleberrying once, but I hate him, he has such great warts on
his hands," and having thus given her opinion of Tim Doolittle,
Edith snatched up her bonnet and placed it upon her head, for the
old man was evidently determined to touch her crow-black hair.
Her answer, however, changed the current of his thoughts, and
while a look of intense pain flitted across his face, he whispered
mournfully, "The same old story they all tell. I might have known
it, but this one looked so fresh, so truthful, that I thought
maybe she'd seen him. Mrs. Atherton's waiting maid," and he turned
toward Edith--"Charlie's dead, and we all walk in darkness now,
Richard and all."
This allusion to Richard reminded Edith of her errand, and
thinking to herself, "I'll ask the crazy old thing if there's a
lady here," she ran after him as he walked slowly away and
catching him by the arm, said, "Tell me, please, is there any Mrs.
Richard Harrington?"
"Not that I know of. They've kept it from me if there is, but
there's Richard, he can tell you," and he pointed toward a man in
a distant part of the grounds.
Curtseying to her companion, Edith ran off in the direction of the
figure moving so slowly down the gravelled walk.
"I wonder what makes him set his feet down so carefully," she
thought, as she came nearer to him. "Maybe there are pegs in his
shoes, just as there were in mine last winter," and the barefoot
little girl glanced at her naked toes, feeling glad they were for
the present out of torture.
By this time she was within a few rods of the strange acting man,
who, hearing her rapid steps, stopped, and turning round with a
wistful, questioning look, said,
"Who's there? Who is it?"
The tone of his voice was rather sharp, and Edith paused suddenly,
while he made an uncertain movement toward her, still keeping his
ear turned in the attitude of intense listening.
"I wonder what he thinks of me?" was Edith's mental comment as the
keen black eyes appeared to scan her closely.
Alas, he was not thinking of her at all, and soon resuming his
walk, he whispered to himself, "They must have gone some other
way."
Slowly, cautiously he moved on, never dreaming of the little
sprite behind him, who, imitating his gait and manner, put down
her chubby bare feet just when his went down, looking occasionally
over her shoulder to see if her clothes swung from side to side
just like Mrs. Atherton's, and treading so softly that he did not
hear her until he reached the summer-house, when the cracking of a
twig betrayed the presence of some one, and again that sad,
troubled voice demanded, "Who is here?" while the arms were
stretched out as if to grasp the intruder, whoever it might be.
Edith was growing excited. It reminded her of blind man's buff;
and she bent her head to elude the hand which came so near
entangling itself in her hair. Again a profound silence ensued,
and thinking it might have been a fancy of his brain that some one
was there with him, poor blind Richard Harrington sat down within
the arbor, where the pleasant September sunshine, stealing through
the thick vine leaves, fell in dancing circles upon his broad
white brow, above which his jet black hair lay in rings. He was a
tall, dark, handsome man, with a singular cast of countenance, and
Edith felt that she had never seen anything so grand, so noble,
and yet so helpless as the man sitting there before her. She knew
now that he was blind, and she was almost glad that it was so, for
had it been otherwise she would never have dared to scan him as
she was doing now. She would not for the world have met the flash
of those keen black eyes, had they not been sightless, and she
quailed even now, when they were bent upon her, although she knew
their glance was meaningless. It seemed to her so terrible to be
blind, and she wondered why he should care to have his house and
grounds so handsome when he could not see them. Still she was
pleased that they were so, for there was a singular fitness, she
thought, between this splendid man and his surroundings.
"I wish he had a little girl like me to lead him and be good to
him," was her next mental comment, and the wild idea crossed her
brain that possibly Mrs. Atherton would let her come up to
Collingwood and be his waiting maid. This brought to mind a second
time the object of her being there now, and she began to devise
the best plan for delivering the bouquet. "I don't believe he
cares for the compliments," she said to herself, "any way, I'll
keep them till another time," but the flowers; how should she give
those to him? She was beginning to be very much afraid of the
figure sitting there so silently, and at last mustering all her
courage, she gave a preliminary cough, which started him to his
feet, and as his tall form towered above her she felt her fears
come back, and scarcely knowing what she was doing she thrust the
bouquet into his hand, saying as she did so, "POOR blind man, I am
so sorry and I've brought you some nice flowers."
The next moment she was gone, and Richard heard the patter of her
feet far up the gravelled walk ere he had recovered from his
surprise. Who was she, and why had she remembered him? The voice
was very, very sweet, thrilling him with a strange melody, which
carried him back to a summer sunset years ago, when on the banks
of the blue Rhine he had listened to a beautiful, dark-eyed Swede
singing her infant daughter to sleep. Then the river itself
appeared before him, cold and grey with the November frosts, and
on its agitated surface he saw a little dimpled hand disappearing
from view, while the shriek of the dark-eyed Swede told that her
child was gone. A plunge--a fearful struggle--and he held the
limp, white object in his arms; he bore it to the shore; he heard
them say that he had saved its life, and then he turned aside to
change his dripping garments and warm his icy limbs. This was the
first picture brought to his mind by Edith Hastings' voice. The
second was a sadder one, and he groaned aloud as he remembered how
from the time of the terrible cold taken then, and the severe
illness which followed, his eyesight had begun to fail--slowly,
very slowly, it is true--and for years he could not believe that
Heaven had in store for him so sad a fate. But it had come at
last--daylight had faded out and the night was dark around him.
Once, in his hour of bitterest agony, he had cursed that Swedish
baby, wishing it had perished in the waters of the Rhine, ere he
saved it at so fearful a sacrifice. But he had repented of the
wicked thought; he was glad he saved the pretty Petrea's child,
even though be should never see her face again. He knew not where
she was, that girlish wife, speaking her broken English for the
sake of her American husband, who was not always as kind to her as
he should have been. He had heard no tidings of her since that
fatal autumn. He had scarcely thought of her for months, but she
came back to him now, and it was Edith's voice which brought her.
"Poor blind man," he whispered aloud. "How like that was to
Petrea, when she said of my father, 'Poor, soft old man;'" and
then he wondered again who his visitor had been, and why she had
left him so abruptly.
It was a child, he knew, and he prized her gift the more for that,
for Richard Harrington was a dear lover of children and he kissed
the fair bouquet as he would not have kissed it had he known from
whom it came. Rising at last from his seat, he groped his way back
to the house, and ordering one of the costly vases in his room to
be filled with water, he placed the flowers therein, and thought
how carefully he would preserve them for the sake of his unknown
friend.
Meantime Edith kept on her way, pausing once and looking back just
in time to see Mr. Harrington kiss the flowers she had brought.
"I'm glad they please him," she said; "but how awful it is to be
blind;" and by way of trying the experiment, she shut her eyes,
and stretching out her arms, walked just as Richard, succeeding so
well that she was beginning to consider it rather agreeable than
otherwise, when she unfortunately ran into a tall rose-bush,
scratching her forehead, tangling her hair, and stubbing her toes
against its gnarled roots. "'Taint so jolly to be blind after
all," she said, "I do believe I've broken my toe," and extricating
herself as best she could from the sharp thorns, she ran on as
fast as her feet could carry her, wondering what Mrs. Atherton
would say when she heard Richard was blind, and feeling a kind of
natural delight in knowing she should be the first to communicate
the bad news.