HOME.
Oh, what a change it was from sunny Florida to England, just how
both Edith and Victor shivered, arrived at the last stage of their
journey, they looked out upon the snow-clad hills and leafless
trees which fitted out by bare and brown against the winter sky.
West Shannondale! the brakeman shouted, and Edith drew her furs
around her, for in a few moments more their own station would be
reached.
"The river is frozen; it must be very cold," said Victor, pointing
to the blue-black stream; skimmered over with a thin coat of ice.
"Yes, very, very cold," and Edith felt the meaning of the word in
more senses than one.
Why wasn't she glad to be home again? Why did her thoughts cling
so to distant Sunnybank, or her heart die within her as waymark
after waymark told her Collingwood was near? Alas! she was not a
loving, eager bride elect, returning to the arms of her beloved,
but a shrinking, hopeless, desolate woman, going back to meet the
destiny she dared not avoid. The change was all in herself, for
the day was no colder, the clouds no greyer, the setting sun no
paler than New England wintry days and clouds and suns are wont to
be. Collingwood was just the same, and its massive walls rose as
proudly amid the dark evergreens around it as they had done in
times gone by, when to the little orphan it seemed a second
Paradise. Away to the right lay Grassy Spring, the twilight
shadows gathering around it, piles of snow resting on its roof,
and a thin wreath of smoke curling from a single chimney in the
rear.
All this Edith saw as in the village omnibus she was driven toward
home, Richard was not expecting them until the morrow, and thus no
new fires were kindled, no welcoming lights hung out, and the
house was unusually gloomy and dark. During Edith's absence
Richard had staid mostly in the library, and there he was sitting
now, with his hands folded together in that peculiarly helpless
way which characterized all his motions. He heard the sound of
wheels, the banging of trunks, and then his ear caught a footstep
it knew full well, a slow, shuffling tread, but Edith's still, and
out into the silent hall he groped his way, watching there until
she came.
How he hugged her to his bosom--never heeding that she gave him
back but one answering kiss, a cold, a frozen thing, which would
not thaw even after it touched his lips, so full of life and
warmth. Poor, deluded man! he fancied that the tears he felt upon
his face were tears of joy at being home again; but alas! alas!
they were tears wrung out by a feeling of dreary home-sickness--a
longing to be somewhere else--to have some other one than Richard
chafing her cold hands and calling her pet names. He looked older,
too, than he used to do, and Edith thought of what he once had
said about her seeing the work of decay go on in him while she yet
was young and vigorous. Still her voice was natural as she
answered his many questions and greeted Mrs. Matson who came in to
see her as soon as she heard of her arrival.
"In mourning!" the latter exclaimed as with womanly curiosity she
inspected Edith's dress.
Richard started, and putting his hand to Edith's neck, felt that
her collar was of crape, and a shadow passed over his face. He
liked to think of her as a bright plumaged bird, not as sombre-
hued and wearing the habiliments which come only from some grave.
"Was it necessary that my darling should carry her love for a
stranger quite so far as this?" he asked. "Need you have dressed
in black?"
Without meaning it, his tone implied reproach, and it cut Edith
cruelly, making her wish that she had told him all, when she wrote
that she was coming home.
"Oh, Richard," she cried, "don't chide me for these outward tokens
of sorrow. Nina, dear, darling Nina, was my sister--my fathers
child. Temple was only a name he assumed to avoid arrest, so it
all got wrong. Everything is wrong," and Edith sobbed impetuously,
while Richard essayed to comfort her.
The dress of black was not displeasing to him now, and he passed
his hands caressingly over its heavy folds as if to ask
forgiveness for having said aught against it.
Gradually Edith grew calm, and after she had met the servants, and
the supper she could not taste was over, she repeated to Richard
the story she had heard from Marie, who had stopped for a time in
New York to visit her sister.
A long time they sat together that night, while Richard told her
how lonely he had been without her, and asked her many questions
of Nina's last days.
"Did she send no message to me?" he said. "She used to like me, I
fancied."
Edith did not know how terrible a message Nina had sent to him,
and she replied, "She talked of you a great deal, but I do not
remember any particular word. I told her I was to be your wife."
and Edith's voice trembled, for this was but a prelude to what she
meant to say ere she bade him good night. She should breathe so
much more freely if she knew her bridal was not so near, and her
sister's death was surely a sufficient reason for deferring it.
Summoning all her courage, she arose, and sitting on Richard's
knee, buttoned and unbuttoned his coat in a kind of abstracted
manner, while she asked if it might be so. "I know I promised for
New Year's night," she said, "but little Nina died so recently and
I loved her so much, May it be put off, Richard--put over until
June?"
Edith had not thought of this in Florida, but here at home, it
came to her like succor to the drowning, and she anxiously awaited
Richard's answer.
A frown for an instant darkened his fine features, for he did not
like this second deferring the day, but he was too unselfish to
oppose it, and he answered,
"Yes, darling, if you will have it so. It may be better to wait at
least six months, shall it be in June, the fifteenth say?"
Edith was satisfied with this, and when they parted her heart was
lighted of a heavy load, for six months seemed to her a great,
great while.
The next day when Grace came up to call on Edith, and was told of
the change, she shrugged her shoulders, for she knew that by this
delay Richard stood far less chance of ever calling Edith his
wife. But she merely said it was well, congratulating Edith upon
her good fortune in being an heiress, and asking many questions
about Arthur and Nina, both, and at last taking her leave without
a hint as to her suspicions of the future. To Edith the idea had
never occurred. She should marry Richard of course, and nothing
could happen to defer the day a third time. So she said at least
to Victor, when she told him of the arrangement, and with a very
expressive whistle, Victor, too, shrugged his shoulders, thinking,
that possibly he need not read Nina's letter after all. He would
rather not if it could be avoided, for he knew how keen the pang
it would indict upon his noble master, and he would not add one
unnecessary drop to the cup of sorrow he saw preparing for poor
Richard.
After a few days of listless languor and pining home-sickness,
Edith settled into her olden routine of reading, talking and
singing to Richard, who thought himself happy even though she did
not caress him as often as she used to do, and was sometimes
impatient and even ill-natured towards him.
"She mourns so much for Nina," was the excuse which Richard wrote
down in his heart for all her sins, either of omission or
commission; and in a measure he was right.
Edith did mourn for sweet little Nina, but mourned not half so
much for her as for the hopes forever fled--for Arthur, at whose
silence she greatly marvelled, thinking that she would write to
him as to her brother, and then shrinking from the task because
she knew not what to say.
Spite of her feelings the six months she had thought so long were
passing far too rapidly to suit her. Time lingers for no one, and
January glided into February, February into March, whose melting
snows and wailing winds gave place at last to April, and then
again the people of Shannondale begun to talk of "that wedding,"
fixed for the 15th of June. Marie had become domesticated at
Collingwood, but the negroes, who now called Edith mistress, still
remained at Grassy Spring, waiting until Arthur should come, or
some message be received from him. It was four months now since
Edith left Sunnybank, and in all that time no tiding had come to
her from Arthur. Grace's letters were unanswered, and Grace
herself was beginning to feel alarmed, when one afternoon, Victor
called Edith to an upper balcony and pointing in the direction of
Grassy Spring, bade her look where the graceful columns of smoke
were rising from all its chimneys, while its windows were opened
wide, and the servants hurried in and out, seemingly big with some
important event.
"Saddle Bedouin," said Edith, more excited than she had deemed it
possible for her to be. "Mr. St. Claire must be expected, I am
going down to see."
Victor obeyed, and without a word to Richard, Edith was soon
galloping off toward Grassy Spring, where she found Grace
hurriedly giving orders to the delighted blacks, who tumbled over
each other in their zeal to have everything in readiness for
"Marster Arthur." He was coming that night, so Grace had told
them, she having received a telegram that morning from New York,
together with a letter.
"He started North the first of Feb." she said to Edith, "taking
Richmond on the way, and has been detained there ever since by
sickness. He is very feeble yet, but is anxious to see us all. He
has received no letters from me, it seems, and thinks you are
married."
Edith turned very white for a moment, and then there burned upon
her cheek a round, red spot, induced by the feeling that the
believing she was married had been the immediate cause of Arthur's
illness. Edith was no longer the pale, listless woman who moved so
like a breathing statue around Collingwood, but a flushed, excited
creature, flitting from room to room, and entering heart and soul
into Grace's plans for having everything about the house as
cheerful and homelike as possible for the invalid. She should stay
to welcome him, too, she said, bidding one of the negroes put
Bedouin in the stable and then go up to Collingwood to tell
Richard where she was.
Arthur was indeed coming to Grassy Spring, brought thither by the
knowing that something must be done with the place ere he went to
Europe as he intended doing, and by the feverish desire to see
Edith once more even though she were the wife of Richard, as he
supposed her to be. Grace's first letter had been lost, and as he
had been some weeks on the way he knew nothing of matters at
Collingwood, though occasionally there crept into his heart a
throb of hope that possibly for Nina's sake the marriage had been
deferred and Edith might be Edith Hastings still. It was very sad
coming back to the spot so fraught with memories of Nina, and this
it was in part which made him look so pale and haggard when at
last he stood within the hall and was met by Grace, who uttered an
exclamation of surprise at seeing him so changed.
"I am very tired," he said, with the tone and air of an invalid,
"Let me rest in the library awhile, before I see the negroes.
Their noise will disturb me," and he walked into the very room
where Edith stood waiting for him.
She had intended to meet him as a brother, the husband of her
sister, but the sight of his white, suffering face swept her
calmness all away, and with a burst of tears she cried, "Oh,
Arthur, Arthur, I did not think you had been so sick. Why did you
not let us know; I would have come to you," and she brought
herself the arm-chair which he took, smiling faintly upon her and
saying,
"It was bad business being sick at a hotel, and I did sometimes
wish you were there, but of course I could not expect you to leave
your husband. How is he?"
Edith could hear the beating of her heart and feel the blood
tingling her cheeks as she replied, "You mean Richard, but he is
not my husband. He--"
Quickly, eagerly Arthur looked up, the expression of his face
speaking volumes of joy, surprise, and even hope, but all this
faded away, leaving him paler, sicker-looking than before, as
Edith continued,
"The marriage was a second time deferred on account of Nina's
death. It will take place in June."
Grace had left the room and an awkward silence ensued during which
Arthur looked absently into the fire, while Edith gazed out upon
the darkening sky, wondering if life would always be as hard to
bear as now, and half wishing that Arthur St. Claire had staid at
Sunnybank until the worst was over.
There was a sound of wheels outside, and Edith heard Richard as he
passed into the hall. He had received her message, and thinking it
proper for him to welcome Mr. St. Claire, he had come to Grassy
Spring to do so, as well as to escort Edith home. Richard could
not see how much Arthur was changed, but his quick ear detected
the weak, tremulous tones of the voice, which tried to greet him
steadily, and so the conversation turned first upon Arthur's
recent illness, and then upon Nina, until at last, as Richard rose
to leave, he laid his arm across Edith's shoulder and said
playfully, "You know of course, that what you predicted, when
years ago you asked me to take a certain little girl, is coming
true. Edith has promised to be my wife. You will surely remain at
Grassy Spring through the summer, and so be present at our wedding
on the 15th of June. I invite you now."
"Thank you," was all Arthur could say, as with his accustomed
politeness he arose to bid his guests good night; but his lip
quivered as he said it, and his eye never for a moment rested upon
Edith, who led Richard in silence to the carriage, feeling that
all she loved in the wide world was left there in the little
library where the light was shining, and where, although she did
not know it, Grace was ministering to the half fainting Arthur.
The sight of Edith and Richard had effected him more than he
supposed it would, but the worst was over now, and as he daily
grew stronger in the bracing northern air he felt more and more
competent to meet what lay before him.