VISITORS AT COLLINGWOOD AND VISITORS AT BRIER HILL.
The morning came at last on which Arthur was expected, but as he
did not appear, Grace gave him up until the morrow, and toward the
middle of the afternoon ordered out her carriage, and drove slowly
in the direction of Collingwood. Alighting before the broad
piazza, and ascending the marble steps, she was asked by Richard's
confidential servant into the parlor, where she sat waiting
anxiously while he went, in quest of his master.
"A lady, sir, wishes to see you in the parlor," and Victor Dupres
bowed low before Richard, awaiting his commands.
"A lady, Victor? Did she give her name?"
"Yes, sir; Atherton--Mrs. Grace Atherton, an old friend, she
said," Victor replied, marveling at the expression of his master's
face, which indicated anything but pleasure.
He had expected her--had rather anticipated her coming; but now
that she was there, he shrank from the interview. It could only
result in sorrow, for Grace was not to him now what she once had
been. He could value her, perhaps, as a friend, but Edith's tale
had told him that he to her was more than a friend. Possibly this
knowledge was not as distasteful to him as he fancied it to be; at
all events, when he remembered it, he said to Victor:
"Is the lady handsome?" feeling a glow of satisfaction in the
praises heaped upon the really beautiful Grace. Ere long the hard
expression left his face, and straightening up his manly form, he
bade Victor take him to her.
As they crossed the threshold of the door, he struck his foot
against it, and instantly there rang in his ear the words which
little Edith had said to him so pityingly, "Poor blind man!" while
he felt again upon his brow the touch of those childish fingers;
and this was why the dark, hard look came back. Edith Hastings
rose up between him and the regal creature waiting so anxiously
his coming, and who, when he came and stood before her, in his
helplessness, wept like a child.
"Richard! oh, Richard! that it should be thus we meet again!" was
all that she could say, as, seizing the groping hand, she covered
it with her tears.
Victor had disappeared, and she could thus give free vent to her
emotions, feeling it almost a relief that the eyes whose glance
she once had loved to meet could not witness her grief.
"Grace," he said at last, the tone of his voice was so cold that
she involuntarily dropped his hands and looked him steadily in the
face. "Grace, do not aggravate my misfortune by expressing too
much sympathy. I am not as miserable as you may think, indeed, I
am not as unhappy even now as yourself."
"It's true, Richard, true," she replied, "and because I am unhappy
I have come to ask your forgiveness if ever word or action, or
taunt of mine caused you a moment's pain. I have suffered much
since we parted, and my suffering has atoned for all my sin."
She ceased speaking and softened by memories of the past, when he
loved Grace Elmendorf, Richard reached for her hand, and holding
it between his own, said to her gently, "Grace, I forgave you
years ago. I know you have suffered much, and I am sorry for it,
but we will understand each other now. You are the widow of the
man you chose, I am hopelessly blind--our possessions adjoin each
other, our homes are in sight. I want you for a neighbor, a
friend, a sister, if you like. I shall never marry. That time is
past. It perished with the long ago, and it will, perhaps, relieve
the monotony of my life if I have a female acquaintance to visit
occasionally. I thank you much for your flowers, although for a
time I did not know you sent them, for the little girl would place
them in my hands without a word and dart away before I could stop
her. Still I knew it was a child, and I preserved them carefully
for her sake until she was last here, when I learned who was the
real donor. I am fond of flowers and thank you for sending them. I
appreciate your kindness. I like you much better than I did an
hour since, for the sound of your voice and the touch of your
hands seem to me like old familiar friends. I am glad you came to
see me, Grace. I wish you to come often, for I am very lonely
here. We will at least be friends, but nothing more. Do you
consent to my terms?"
She had no alternative but to consent, and bowing her head, she
answered back, "Yes, Richard; that is all I can expect, all I
wish. I had no other intention in sending you bouquets."
He knew that she did not tell him truly, but he pitied her
mortification, and tried to divert her mind by talking upon
indifferent subjects, but Grace was too much chagrined and
disappointed to pay much heed to what he said, and after a time
arose to go.
"Come again soon," he said, accompanying her to the door, "and
send up that novelty Edith, will you?"
"Edith," muttered Grace, as she swept haughtily down the box-lined
walk, and stepped into her carriage. "I'll send her back to the
Asylum, as I live. Why didn't she tell me just how it was, and so
prevent me from making myself ridiculous?"
Grace was far too much disturbed to go home at once. She should do
or say something unlady-like if she did, and she bade Tom drive
her round the village, thus unconsciously giving the offending
Edith a longer time in which to entertain and amuse the guest at
Brier Hill, for Arthur St. Claire had come.
Edith was the first to spy him sauntering slowly up the walk, and
she watched him curiously as he came, mimicing his gait, and
wondering if he didn't feel big.
"Nobody's afraid of you," she soliloquised, "if you do belong to
the firstest family in Virginia." Then, hearing Rachel, who
answered his ring, bid him walk into the parlor and amuse himself
till Mrs. Atherton came, she thought, "Wouldn't it be jolly to go
down and entertain him myself. Let me see, what does Mrs. Atherton
say to the Shannondale gentlemen when they call? Oh, I know, she
asks them if they've read the last new novel; how they liked it,
and so on. I can do all that, and maybe he'll think I'm a famous
scholar. I mean to wear the shawl she looks so pretty in," and
going to her mistress' drawer, the child took out and threw around
her shoulders a crimson scarf, which Grace often wore, and then
descended to the parlor, where Arthur St. Claire stood, leaning
against the marble mantel, and listlessly examining various
ornaments upon it.
At the first sight of him Edith felt her courage forsaking her,
there seemed so wide a gulf between herself and the haughty-
looking stranger, and she was about to leave the room when he
called after her, bidding her stay, and asking who she was.
"I'm Edith Hastings," she answered, dropping into a chair, and
awkwardly kicking her heels against the rounds in her
embarrassment at having those large, quizzical brown eyes fixed so
inquiringly upon her.
He was a tall, handsome young man, not yet nineteen years of age,
and in his appearance there certainly was something savoring of
the air supposed to mark the F. F. V's. His manners were polished
in the extreme, possessing, perhaps, a little too much hauteur,
and impressing the beholder with the idea that he could, if he
chose, be very cold and overbearing. His forehead, high and
intellectually formed, was shaded by curls of soft brown hair,
while about his mouth there lurked a mischievous smile, somewhat
at variance with the proud curve of his upper lip, where an
incipient mustache was starting into life. Such was Arthur St.
Claire, as he stood coolly inspecting Edith Hastings, who mentally
styling him the "hatefullest upstart" she ever saw, gave him back
a glance as cool and curious as his own.
"You are an odd little thing," he said at last.
"No I ain't neither," returned Edith, the tears starting in her
flashing black eyes.
"Spunky," was the young man's next remark, as he advanced a step
or two toward her. "But don't let's quarrel, little lady. You've
come down to entertain me, I dare say; and now tell me who you
are."
His manner at once disarmed the impulsive Edith of all prejudice,
and she replied:
"I told you I was Edith Hastings, Mrs. Atherton's waiting maid."
"Waiting maid!" and Arthur St. Claire took a step or two backwards
as he said: "Why are you in here? This is not your place."
Edith sprang to her feet. She could not misunderstand the feeling
with which he regarded her, and with an air of insulted dignity
worthy of Grace herself, she exclaimed,
"Oh, how I hate you, Arthur St. Claire! At first I thought you
might be good, like Squire Harrington; but you ain't. I can't bear
you. Ugh!"
"Squire Harrington? Does he live near here?" and the face which at
the sight of her anger had dimpled all over with smiles, turned
white as Arthur St. Claire asked this question, to which Edith
replied:
"Yes; he's blind, and he lives up at Collingwood. You can see its
tower now," and she pointed across the fields.
But Arthur did not heed her, and continued to ply her with
questions concerning Mr. Harrington, asking if he had formerly
lived near Geneva, in western New York, if he had a crazy father,
and if he ever came to Brier Hill.
Edith's negative answer to this last query seemed to satisfy him,
and when, mistaking his eagerness for a desire to see her
divinity, Edith patronizingly informed him that he might go with
her some time to Collingwood, he answered her evasively, asking if
Richard recognized voices, as most blind people did.
Edith could not tell, but she presumed he did, for he was the
smartest man that ever lived; and in her enthusiastic praises she
waxed so eloquent, using, withal, so good language, that Arthur
forgot she was a waiting maid, and insensibly began to entertain a
feeling of respect for the sprightly child, whose dark face
sparkled and flashed with her excitement. She WAS a curious
specimen, he acknowledged, and he began adroitly to sound the
depths of her intellect. Edith took the cue at once, and not
wishing to be in the background, asked him, as she had at first
intended doing, if he'd read the last new novel.
Without in the least comprehending WHAT novel she meant, Arthur
promptly replied that he had.
"How did you like it?" she continued, adjusting her crimson scarf
as she had seen Mrs. Atherton do under similar circumstances.
"Very much indeed," returned the young man with imperturbable
gravity, but when with a toss of her head she asked; "Didn't you
think there was too much 'PHYSICS in it?" he went off into peals
of laughter so loud and long that they brought old Rachel to the
door to see if "he was done gone crazy or what."
Taking advantage of her presence, the crest-fallen Edith crept
disconsolately up the stairs, feeling that she had made a most
ridiculous mistake, and wondering what the word COULD be that
sounded so much like 'PHYSICS, and yet wasn't that at all. She
know she had made herself ridiculous, and was indulging in a fit
of crying when Mrs. Atherton returned, delighted to meet her young
cousin, in whom she felt a pardonable pride.
"You must have been very lonely," she said, beginning to apologize
for her absence.
"Never was less so in my life," he replied. "Why, I've been
splendidly entertained by a little black princess, who called
herself your waiting maid, and discoursed most eloquently of
METAPHYSICS and all that."
"Edith, of course," said Grace. "It's just, like her. Imitated me
in every thing, I dare say."
"Rather excelled you, I think, in putting on the fine lady,"
returned the teasing Arthur, who saw at once that Edith Hastings
was his fair cousin's sensitive point.
"What else did she say?" asked Grace, but Arthur generously
refrained from repeating the particulars of his interview with the
little girl who, as the days went by, interested him so much that
he forgot his Virginia pride, and greatly to Mrs. Atherton's
surprise, indulged with her in more than one playful romp,
teasingly calling her his little "Metaphysics," and asking if she
hated him still.
She did not. Next to Richard and Marie, she liked him better than
any one she had ever seen, and she was enjoying his society so
much when a most unlucky occurrence suddenly brought her happiness
to an end, and afforded Grace an excuse for doing what she had
latterly frequently desired to do, viz. that of sending the little
girl back to the Asylum from which she had taken her.
Owing to the indisposition of the chambermaid, Edith was one day
sent with water to Mr. St. Claire's room. Arthur was absent, but
on the table his writing desk lay open, and Edith's inquisitive
eyes were not long in spying a handsome golden locket, left there
evidently by mistake. Two or three times she had detected him
looking at this picture, and with an eager curiosity to see it
also, she took the locket in her hand, and going to the window,
touched the spring.
It was a wondrously beautiful face which met her view--the face of
a young girl, whose golden curls rippling softly over her white
shoulders, and whose eyes of lustrous blue, reminded Edith of the
angels about which Rachel sang so devoutly every Sunday. To Edith
there was about that face a nameless but mighty fascination, a
something which made her warm blood chill and tingle in her veins,
while there crept over her a second time dim visions of something
far back in the past--of purple fruit on vine-clad hills--of music
soft and low--of days and nights on some tossing, moving object--
and then of a huge white building, embowered in tall green trees,
whose milk-white blossoms she gathered in her hand; while distinct
from all the rest was this face, on which she gazed so earnestly.
It is true that all these thoughts were not clear to her mind; it
was rather a confused mixture of ideas, one of which faded ere
another came, so that there seemed no real connection between
them; and had she embodied them in words, they would have been
recognized as the idle fancies of a strange, old-fashioned child.
But the picture--there WAS something in it which held Edith
motionless, while her tongue seemed struggling to articulate a
NAME, but failed in the attempt; and when, at last, her lips did
move, they uttered the word MARIE, as if she too, were associated
with that sweet young face.
"Oh, but she's jolly," Edith said, "I don't wonder Mr. Arthur
loves her," and she felt her own heart throb with a strange
affection for the beautiful original of that daguerreotype.
In the hall without there was the sound of a footstep. It was
coming to that room. It was Grace herself, Edith thought; and
knowing she would be censured for touching what did not belong to
her, she thrust the locket into her bosom, intending to return it
as soon as possible, and springing out upon the piazza, scampered
away, leaving the water pail to betray her recent presence.
It was NOT Grace, as she had supposed, but Arthur St. Claire
himself come to put away the locket, which he suddenly remembered
to have left upon the table. Great was his consternation when he
found it gone, and that no amount of searching could bring it to
light. He did not notice the empty pail the luckless Edith had
left, although he stumbled over it twice in his feverish anxiety
to find his treasure. But what he failed to observe was discovered
by Grace, whom he summoned to his aid, and who exclaimed:
"Edith Hastings has been here! She must be the thief!"
"Edith, Grace, Edith--it cannot be," and Arthur's face indicated
plainly the pain it would occasion him to find that it was so.
"I hope you may be right, Arthur, but I have not so much
confidence in her as you seem to have. There she is now,"
continued Grace, spying her across the yard and calling to her to
come.
Blushing, stammering, and cowering like a guilty thing, Edith
entered the room, for she heard Arthur's voice and knew that he
was there to witness her humiliation.
"Edith," said Mrs. Atherton, sternly, "what have you been doing?"
No answer from Edith save an increase of color upon her face, and
with her suspicions confirmed, Grace went on,
"What have you in your pocket?"
"'Taint in my pocket; it's in my bosom," answered Edith, drawing
it forth and holding it to view.
"How dare you steal it," asked Grace, and instantly there came
into Edith's eyes the same fiery, savage gleam from which Mrs.
Atherton always shrank, and beneath which she now involuntarily
quailed.
It had never occurred to Edith that she could be accused of theft,
and she stamped at first like a little fury, then throwing herself
upon the sofa, sobbed out, "Oh, dear--oh, dear, I wish God would
let me die. I don't want to live any longer in such a mean, nasty
world. I want to go to Heaven, where everything is jolly."
"You are a fit subject for Heaven," said Mrs. Atherton,
scornfully, and instantly the passionate sobbing ceased; the tears
were dried in the eyes which blazed with insulted dignity as Edith
arose, and looking her mistress steadily in the face, replied,
"I suppose you think I meant to steal and keep the pretty picture,
but the one who was in here with me knows I didn't."
"Who was that?" interrupted Grace, her color changing visibly at
the child's reverent reply.
"God was with me, and I wish he hadn't let me touch it, but he
did. It lay on the writing desk and I took it to the window to see
it. Oh, isn't she jolly?" and as she recalled the beautiful
features, the hard expression left her own, and she went on, "I
couldn't take my eyes from her; they would stay there, and I was
almost going to speak her name, when I heard you coming, and ran
away. I meant to bring it back, Mr. Arthur," and she turned
appealingly to him. "I certainly did, and you believe me, don't
you? I never told a lie in my life."
Ere Arthur could reply, Grace chimed in.
"Believe you? Of course not. You stole the picture and intended to
keep it. I cannot have you longer in my family, for nothing is
safe. I shall send you back at once."
There was a look in the large eyes which turned so hopelessly from
Arthur to Grace, and from Grace back to Arthur, like that the
hunted deer wears when hotly pursued in the chase. The white lips
moved but uttered no sound and the fingers closed convulsively
around the golden locket which Arthur advanced to take away.
"Let me see her once more," she said.
He could not refuse her request, and touching the spring he held
it up before her.
"Pretty lady," she whispered, "sweet lady, whose name I most know,
speak, and tell Mr. Arthur that I didn't do it. I surely didn't."
This constant appeal to Arthur, and total disregard of herself,
did not increase Mrs. Atherton's amiability, and taking Edith by
the shoulder she attempted to lead her from the room.
At the door Edith stopped, and said imploringly to Arthur,
"DO you think I stole it?"
He shook his head, a movement unobserved by Grace, but fraught
with so much happiness for the little girl. She did not heed
Grace's reproaches now, nor care if she was banished to her own
room for the remainder of the day. Arthur believed her innocent;
Uncle Tom believed her innocent, and Rachel believed her innocent,
which last fact was proved by the generous piece of custard pie
hoisted to her window in a small tin pail, said pail being poised
upon the prongs of a long pitch-fork. The act of thoughtful
kindness touched a tender chord in Edith's heart, and the pie
choked her badly, but she managed to eat it all save the crust,
which she tossed into the grass, laughing to see how near it came
to hitting Mrs. Atherton, who looked around to discover whence it
could possibly have come.
That night, just before dark, Grace entered Edith's room, and told
her that as Mr. St. Claire, who left them on the morrow, had
business in New York, and was going directly there, she had
decided to send her with him to the Asylum. "He will take a letter
from me," she continued, "telling them why you are sent back, and
I greatly fear it will be long ere you find as good a home as this
has been to you."
Edith sat like one stunned by a heavy blow. She had not really
believed that a calamity she so much dreaded, would overtake her,
and the fact that it had, paralyzed her faculties. Thinking her in
a fit of stubbornness Mrs. Atherton said no more, but busied
herself in packing her scanty wardrobe, feeling occasionally a
twinge of remorse as she bent over the little red, foreign-looking
chest, or glanced at the slight figure sitting so motionless by
the window.
"Whose is this?" she asked, holding up a box containing a long,
thick braid of hair.
"Mother's hair! mothers hair! for Marie told me so. You shan't
touch THAT!" and like a tigress Edith sprang upon her, and
catching the blue-black tress, kissed it passionately, exclaiming,
"'Tis mother's--'tis. I remember now, and I could not think
before, but Marie told me so the last time I saw her, years and
years ago. Oh, mother, if I ever had a mother, where are you to-
night, when I want you so much?"
She threw herself upon her humble bed, not thinking of Grace, nor
yet of the Asylum, but revelling in her newborn joy. Suddenly,
like a flash of lightning, an incident of the past had come back
to her bewildered mind, and she knew now whose was the beautiful
braid she had treasured so carefully. Long ago--oh, how long it
seemed to her--there had come to the Asylum a short, dumpy woman,
with a merry face, who brought her this hair in a box, telling her
it was her mother's, and also that she was going to a far country,
but should return again sometime--and this woman was Marie, who
haunted her dreams so often, whispering to her of magnolias and
cape-jessamines. All this Edith remembered distinctly, and while
thinking of it she fell asleep, nor woke to consciousness even
when Rachel's kind old hands undressed her carefully and tucked
her up in bed, saying over her a prayer, and asking that Miss
Grace's heart might relent and keep the little girl. It had not
relented when morning came, and still, when at breakfast, Arthur
received a letter, which made it necessary for him to go to New
York by way of Albany, she did suggest that it might be too much
trouble to have the care of Edith.
"Not at all," he said; and half an hour later Edith was called
into the parlor, and told to get herself in readiness for the
journey.
"Oh, I can't, I can't," cried Edith, clinging to Mrs. Atherton's
skirt, and begging of her not to send her back.
"Where will you go?" asked Grace. "I don't want you here."
"I don't know," sobbed Edith, uttering the next instant a scream
of joy, as she saw, in the distance, the carriage from
Collingwood, and knew that Richard was in it. "To him! to him!"
she exclaimed, throwing up her arms. "Let me go to Mr. Harrington!
He wants me, I know."
"Are you faint?" asked Grace, as she saw the sudden paling of
Arthur's lips.
"Slightly," he answered, taking her offered salts, and keeping his
eyes fixed upon the carriage until it passed slowly by, "I'm
better now," he said, returning the salts, and asking why Edith
could not go to Collingwood.
Grace would rather she should go anywhere else, but she did not
say so to Arthur. She merely replied that Edith was conceited
enough to think Mr. Harrington pleased with her just because he
had sometimes talked to her when she carried him flowers.
"But of course he don't care for her," she said. "What could a
blind man do with a child like her? Besides, after what has
occurred, I could not conscientiously give her a good name."
Arthur involuntarily gave an incredulous whistle, which spoke
volumes of comfort to the little girl weeping so passionately by
the window, and watching with longing eyes the Collingwood
carriage now passing from her view.
"We must go or be left," said Arthur, approaching her gently, and
whispering to her not to cry.
"Good bye, Edith," said Mrs. Atherton, putting out her jewelled
band; but Edith would not touch it, and in a tone of voice which
sank deep into the proud woman's heart, she answered:
"You'll be sorry for this some time."
Old Rachel was in great distress, for Edith was her pet; and
winding her black arms about her neck, she wept over her a simple,
heartfelt blessing, and then, as the carriage drove from the gate,
ran back to her neglected churning, venting her feelings upon the
dasher, which she set down so vigorously that the rich cream flew
in every direction, bespattering the wall, the window, the floor,
the stove, and settling in large white flakes upon her tawny skin
and tall blue turban.
Passing through the kitchen, Grace saw it all, but offered no
remonstrance, for she knew what had prompted movements so
energetic on the part of odd old Rachel. She, too, was troubled,
and all that, day she was conscious of a feeling of remorse which
kept whispering to her of a great wrong done the little girl whose
farewell words were ringing in her ear: "You'll be sorry for this
some time."