NINA'S LETTER.
After a week or two had passed, Arthur went occasionally to
Collingwood, where Richard greeted him most cordially, urging him
to come more frequently and wondering why he always seemed in so
much haste to get away. On the occasion of these visits Edith
usually kept out of the way, avoiding him so studiously that
Richard began to fear she might perhaps dislike him, and he
resolved to ask her the first good opportunity. But Edith avoided
him, too, never coming now to sit with him alone; somebody must
always be present when she was with him, else had her bursting
heart betrayed the secret telling so fearfully upon her. Oh, how
hateful to her were the preparations for her bridal, which had
commenced on a most magnificent scale, for Richard, after waiting
so long, would have a grand wedding, and that all who chose might
witness the ceremony, it was to be performed in the church, from
which the guests would accompany him back to Collingwood.
All Shannondale was interested, and the most extravagant stories
were set afloat, not only concerning the trouseau of the bride,
but the bride herself. What ailed her? What made her so cold, so
white, so proudly reserved, so like a walking ghost? She, who had
been so full of vigorous life, so merry, so light-hearted. Could
it be the mourning for sweet little Nina, or was it--?
And here the knot of gossippers, at the corner of the streets, or
in the stores, or in the parlors at home, would draw more closely
together as they whispered,
"Does she love Richard Harrington as she ought? Is not her heart
given rather to the younger, handsomer St. Claire?"
How they pitied her if it were so, and how curiously they watched
her whenever she appeared in their midst, remarking every action,
and construing it according to their convictions.
Victor, too, was on the alert, and fully aware of the public
feeling. Day after day he watched his young mistress, following
her when she left the house alone, and seeing her more than once
when in the Deering woods she laid her face in the springing grass
and prayed that she might die. But for her promise, sworn to
Richard, she would have gone to him, and kneeling at his feet
begged him to release her from her vow, and so spare her the
dreadful trial from which she shrank more and more as she saw it
fast approaching.
Edith was almost crazy, and Arthur, whenever he chanced to meet
her, marvelled at the change since he saw her last. Once he, too,
thought of appealing to Richard to save her from so sad a fate as
that of an unloving wife, but he would not interfere, lest by so
doing he should err again, and so in dreary despair, which each
day grew blacker and more hopeless, Edith was left alone, until
Victor roused in her behalf, and without allowing himself time to
reflect, sought his master's presence, bearing with him Nina's
letter, and the soiled sheet on which Richard had unwittingly
scratched out Arthur's marriage.
It was a warm, balmy afternoon, and through the open windows of
the library, the south wind came stealing in, laden with the
perfume of the pink-tinted apple blossoms, and speaking to the
blind man of the long ago, when it was his to see the budding
beauties now shut out from his sight. The hum of the honey-bee was
heard, and the air was rife with the sweet sounds of later spring.
On the branch of a tree without, a robin was trilling a song. It
had sung there all the morning, and now it had come back again,
singing a second time to Richard, who thought of the soft nest up
in the old maple, and likened that robin and its mate to himself
and Edith, his own singing-bird.
But why linger so long over that May-day which Richard remembered
through many, many future years, growing faint and sick as often
as the spring brought back the apple-blossom perfume or the song
of mated robins. It is, alas, that we shrink as Victor did from
the task imposed, that, like him, we dread the blow which will
strike at the root of Richard's very life, and we approach
tearfully, pityingly, half remorsefully, as we stand sometimes by
a sunken grave, doubting whether our conduct to the dead were
always right and just. So Victor felt, as he drew near to Richard;
and sitting down beside him said,
"Can I talk with you awhile about Miss Hastings?" Richard started.
Victor had come to tell him she was sick, and he asked if it were
not so.
"Something has ailed her of late," he said.
"She is greatly changed since Nina's death. She mourns much for
her sister."
"Yes," returned Victor, "she loved Nina dearly, but it is more
than this which ails her. God forbid that I should unnecessarily
wound you, Mr. Harrington, but I think it right for you to know."
The dark face, shaded with the long beard, was very white now, and
the sightless eyes had in them a look of terror as Richard asked,
"What is it, Victor? Tell me."
"Come to the sofa first," Victor rejoined, feeling intuitively
that he was safer there than in that high arm-chair, and with
unusual tenderness he led his master to the spot, then sitting
down beside him, he continued, "Do you remember Nina once made you
write something upon a sheet of paper, and that you bade me
ascertain what it was?"
"Yes, I remember," answered Richard, "you told me you had not read
it, and imputing it to some crazy fancy of no importance, I gave
it no more thought. What of it, Victor?"
"I had not read it then," answered Victor, "but I have done so
since, I have it in my possession--here in my hand. Would you like
to hear it?"
Richard nodded, and Victor read aloud: "I, the blind man, Richard
Harrington, do hereby solemnly swear that the marriage of Arthur
St. Claire and Nina Bernard, performed by me and at my house, is
null and void,"
"What! Read it again! It cannot be that I heard aright," and
Richard listened while Victor repeated the lines. "Arthur and
Nina! Was she the young girl wife, he, the boy husband, who came
to me that night?" Richard exclaimed. "Why have I never known of
this before? Why did Edith keep it from me? Say, Victor," and
again Richard listened, this time, oh, how eagerly, while Victor
told him what he knew of that fatal marriage, kept so long a
secret, and as he listened, the beaded drops stood thickly upon
his forehead and gathered around his ashen lips, for Victor
purposely let fall a note of warning which shot through the
quivering nerves of the blind man like a barbed burning arrow,
wringing from him the piteous cry,
"Oh, Victor, Victor, does she--does Edith love Arthur? Has she
loved him all the time? Is it this which makes her voice so sad,
her step so slow? Speak--better that I know it now than after 'tis
too late. What other paper is it you are unfolding?"
"'Tis a letter from Nina to you. Can you hear it now?"
"Yes, but tell me first all you know. Don't withhold a single
thing. I would hear the whole."
So Victor told him what he knew up to the time of their going to
Florida; and then, opening Nina's letter, he began to read,
pausing, occasionally, to ask if he should stop.
"No, no; go on!" Richard whispered, hoarsely, his head dropping
lower and lower, until the face was hidden from view and the chin
rested upon the chest, which heaved with every labored breath.
Once at the words, "When you hear this Nina'll be there with you.
She'll sit upon your knee and wind her arms around your neck"--he
started, and seemed to be thrusting something from his lap--
something which made him shiver. Was it Nina? He thought so, and
strove to push her off but when Victor read, "She will comfort you
when the great cry comes in--the crash like the breaking up of the
ice in the Northern ponds," he ceased to struggle, and Victor
involuntarily stopped when he saw the long arms twine themselves
as it were around an invisible form. Then he commenced again: "And
when you feel yourself broken up like they are in the spring,
listen and you'll hear me whispering, 'Poor Richard! I pity you so
much, and I'll kiss your tears away.'"
Did he hear her? hear Nina whispering comfort to his poor bruised
heart? We cannot tell. We only know he bent his ear lower, as if
to catch the faintest breath; but alas! there were no tears to
kiss away. The blind eyes could not weep--they were too hot, too
dry for that--and blood-red rings of fire danced before them as
they did when Nina came to him with the startling news that Miggie
was dead in the Deering woods.
Victor was reading now about these woods and the scene enacted
there, and Richard understood it all, even to the reason why Edith
had persisted in being his wife. The deepest waters run silently,
it is said, and so, perhaps, the strongest heart when crushed to
atoms lies still as death, and gives outwardly no token of its
anguish. True it is that Richard neither moaned, nor moved, nor
spoke; only the head drooped lower, while the arms clung tightly
to the fancied form he held, as if between himself and Nina,
wherever she was that dreary day, there was a connecting link of
sympathy which pervaded his whole being, and so prevented him from
dying outright as he wished he could.
It was finished at last, Nina's letter--and it seemed to Richard
as if the three kinds of darkness, of which she told him, had
indeed settled down upon him, so confused was his brain, so
crushed his heart, and so doubly black his blindness. He looked to
Victor like some great oak, scathed and blasted with one fell
blow, and he was trembling for the result, when the lips moved and
he caught the words, "Leave me little Snow Drop. Go back to
Heaven, whence you came. The blind man will do right."
Slowly then the arms unclosed, and as if imbued with sight, the
red eyes followed something to the open window and out into the
bright sunshine beyond; then they turned to Victor, and a smile
broke over the stormy features as Richard whispered:
"Nina's gone! Now take me to my room."
Across the threshold Victor led the half-fainting man, meeting
with no one until his master's chamber was reached, when Edith
came through the hall, and, glancing in, saw the white face on the
pillow, where Victor had laid his master down, Richard heard her
step, and said, faintly, "Keep her off; I cannot bear it yet!" But
even while he spoke Edith was there beside him, asking, in much
alarm, what was the matter. She did not observe how Richard
shuddered at the sound of her voice; she only thought that he was
very ill, and, with every womanly, tender feeling aroused, she
bent over him and pressed upon his lips a kiss which burned him
like a coal of fire. She must not kiss him now, and, putting up
his hands with the feebleness of a little child, he cried
piteously,
"Don't Edith, don't! Please leave me for a time. I'd rather be
alone!"
She obeyed him then, and went slowly out, wondering what it was
which had so affected him as to make even her presence
undesirable.
Meantime, with hand pressed over his aching eyes, to shut out, if
possible, the rings of fire still dancing before them, Richard
Harrington thought of all that was past and of what was yet to
come.
"How can I lose her now," he moaned, "Why didn't she tell me at
the first? It would not then have been half so bad. Oh, Edith, my
lost Edith. You have not been all guiltless in this matter. The
bird I took to my bosom has struck me at last with its talons, and
struck so deep. Oh, how it aches, how it aches, and still I love
her just the same; aye, love her more, now that I know she must
not be mine. Edith, oh, my Edith!"
Then Richard's thoughts turned upon Arthur. He must talk with him,
and he could not meet him there at Collingwood. There were too
many curious eyes to see, too many ears to listen. At Grassy
Spring they would be more retired, and thither he would go, that
very night. He never should sleep again until he heard from
Arthur's own lips a confirmation of the cruel story. He could not
ask Edith. Her voice would stir his heart-strings with a keener,
deeper agony than he was enduring now. But to Arthur he could
speak openly, and then too--Richard was loth to confess it, even
to himself, but it was, never the less, true--Arthur, though a
man, was gentler than Edith. He would be more careful, more
tender, and while Edith might confirm the whole with one of her
wild, impulsive outbursts, Arthur would reach the same point
gradually and less painfully.
"Order the carriage, Victor," he said, as it was growing dark in
the room. "I am going to Grassy Spring,"
It was in vain that Victor attempted to persuade him to wait until
the morrow. Richard was determined, and when Edith came from her
scarcely tasted supper, she saw the carriage as it passed through
the Collingwood grounds on its way to Grassy Spring, but little
dreamed of what would be ere its occupant returned to them again.