Part 17 (1/2)
”It's nice to cry. It takes the heavy pain away,” and Nina made a gesture that Edith must not stop her, while Arthur, roused from his apathy, also said,
”She has not wept before in years. It will be a great relief.”
At the sound of HIS voice Nina lifted up her head, and turned toward the corner whence it came, but Edith saw that in the glance there was neither reproach nor fear, nothing save trusting confidence, and her heart insensibly softened toward him.
”Poor Arthur,” Nina murmured, and laying her head again on Edith's bosom, she said, ”Every body is sad where I am, but I can't help it. Oh, I can't help it. Nina's crazy, Miggie, Nina is. Poor Nina,” and the voice which uttered these words was so sadly touching that Edith's tears mingled with those of the young creature she hugged the closer to her, whispering,
”I know it, darling, and I pity you so much. Maybe you'll get well, now that you know me.”
”Yea, if you'll stay here always,” said Nina. ”What made you gone so long? I wanted you so much when the nights were dark and lonesome, and little bits of faces bent over me like yours used to be, Miggie--yours in the picture, when you wore the red morocco shoe and I led you on the high verandah.”
”What does she mean?” asked Edith, who had listened to the words as to something not wholly new to her.
”I don't know,” returned Arthur, ”unless she has confounded you with her sister, MARGUERITE, who died many years ago, I have heard that Nina, failing to speak the real name, always called her MIGGIE. Possibly you resemble Miggie's mother. I think Aunt Phillis said you did.”
Edith, too, remembered Phillis' saying that she looked like ”Master Bernard's” wife, and Arthur's explanations seemed highly probable.
”Dear, darling Nina,” she said, kissing the pure white forehead, ”I WILL be a sister to you.”
”And stay with me?” persisted Nina. ”Sleep with me nights with your arms round my neck, just like yon used to do? I hate to sleep alone, with Soph coiled up on the floor, she scares me so, and won't answer when I call her. Then, when I'm put in the recess, it's terrible. DON'T let me go in there again, will you?”
Edith had not like Grace, looked into the large closet adjoining the Den, and she did not know what Nina meant, but at a venture she replied,
”No, darling. You'll be so good that they will not wish to put you there.”
”I CAN'T,” returned Nina, with the manner of one who distrusted herself. ”I try, because it will please Arthur, but I must sing and dance and pull my hair when my head feels so big and heavy, and once, Miggie, when it was big as the house, and I pulled my hair till they shaved it off, I tore my clothes in pieces and threw them into the fire. Then, when Arthur came--Dr. Griswold sent for him, you see--I buried my fingers in HIS hair, so,” and she was about to clutch her own golden locks when Edith shudderingly caught her hands and held them tightly lest they should harm the tresses she thought so beautiful.
”Arthur cried,” continued Nina--”cried so hard that my brain grew cool at once. It's dreadful to see a man cry, Miggie--a great, strong man like Arthur. Poor Arthur, didn't you cry and call me your lost Nina?”
A suppressed moan was Arthur's answer, and Nina, when she heard it, slid from Edith's arms and crossing over to where she sat, climbed into his lap with all the freedom of a little child, and winding her arms about his neck, said to him softly,
”Don't be so sorry, Arthur, Nina'll be good. Nina is good now.
He's crying again. Make him stop, wont you? It hurts Nina so.
There, poor boy,” and the little waxen hands wiped away the tears falling so fast over Arthur's face.
Holding one upon the end of her finger and watching it until it dropped upon the carpet, she said with a smile, ”Look, Miggie, MEN'S tears are bigger than girls.”
Oh, how Edith's heart ached for the strange couple opposite her-- the strong man and the crazy young girl who clung to him as confidingly, as if his bosom were her rightful resting place. She pitied them both, but her sympathies were enlisted for Arthur, and coming to his side she laid her hand upon the damp brown locks, which Nina once had torn in her insane fury, and in a voice which spoke volumes of sympathy, whispered, ”I am sorry for you.”
This was too much for Arthur, and he sobbed aloud, while Edith, forgetting all proprieties in her grief for him, bowed her face upon his head, and he could feel her hot tears dropping on his hair.
For a moment Nina looked from one to the other in silence, then standing upon her feet and bending over both, she said,
”Don't cry, Miggie, don't cry, Arthur. Nina ain't very bad to day.
She wont be bad any more. Don't. It will all come right some time.
It surely will. Nina won't be here always, and there'll be no need to cry when she is gone.”
She seemed to think the distress was all on her account, and in her childish way she sought to comfort them until hope whispered to both that, as she said, ”It would come right sometime.”