Part 19 (1/2)
”Oh, Mr. St. Claire,” interrupted Edith, ”You surely do love her.
You cannot help loving her, and she so beautiful, so innocent.”
”Yes,” he answered, ”as a brother loves an unfortunate sister. I feel towards her, I think, as a mother does towards a helpless child, a tender pity which prompts me to bear with her even when she tries me almost beyond endurance. She is not always as mild as you see her now, though her frenzied moods do not occur as frequently as they did. She loves me, I think, as an infant loves its mother, and is better when I am with her. At all events, since coming to Gra.s.sy Spring, she has been unusually quiet, until within the last two weeks, when a nervous fever has confined her to her room and made her somewhat unmanagable. Griswold said she would be better here, and though I had not much faith in the experiment, I see now that he was right. Griswold is always right, and had I followed his advice years ago, much of my trouble might have been averted. Edith, never conceal a single act, if you wish to be happy. A little fault, if covered up, grows into a mountain; and the longer it is hidden, the harder it is to be confessed.
This is my experience. There was a false step at first, and it lies too far back in the past to be remedied now. No one knows of it but myself, Griswold, Nina, and my G.o.d. Yes, there IS one more whose memory might be refreshed, but I now have no fear of him.”
Edith did not ask who this other was, neither did she dream that Richard Harrington was in any way connected with the mystery. She thought of him, however, wondering if she might tell him of Nina, and asking if she could.
Arthur's face was very white, as he replied, ”Tell him if you like, or any one else. It is needless to keep it longer, but, Edith, you'll come again, won't you? come to see Nina if nothing more. I am glad you have seen her, provided you do not desert me wholly.”
”Of course I shall not,” she said, as she laid the golden head of the sleeping girl upon the cus.h.i.+on of the sofa, preparatory to leaving, ”I'll come again, and forgive you, too, for anything you may have done, except a wrong to her,” and she carefully kissed the poor, crazy Nina.
Then, offering her hand to Arthur she tried to bid him good-bye as of old, but he missed something in her manner, and with feelings sadly depressed he watched her from the window, as, a.s.sisted by Ike, she mounted her pony and galloped swiftly away.
”She's lost to me forever, and there's nothing worth living for now,” he said, just as a little hand pressed his arm, and a sweet childish voice murmured, ”Yes, there is, Arthur. Live for Nina, poor Nina,” and the snowy fingers, which, for a moment, had rested lightly on his arm, began to play with the b.u.t.tons of his coat, while the soft blue eyes looted pleadingly into his.
”Yes, darling; he said, caressing her flowing curls, and pus.h.i.+ng them back from her forehead, ”I will live for you, hereafter. I will love no one else.”
”No one but Miggie. You MAY love her. You must love her, Arthur.
She's so beautiful, so grand, why has she gone from Nina, I want her here, want her all the time;” and Nina's mood began to change.
Tears filled her eyes, and burying her face in Arthur's bosom she begged him to go after Miggie, to bring her. back and keep her there always, threatening that if he did'nt ”Nina would be bad.”
Tenderly, but firmly, as a parent soothes a refractory child, did Arthur soothe the excitable Nina, telling her Miggie should come again, or if she did not, they'd go up and see her.
CHAPTER XVII.
NINA AND MIGGIE.
It would be impossible to describe Edith's feelings as she rode toward home. She knew Arthur had not told her the whole, and that the part omitted was the most important of all. What could it be?
She thought of a thousand different things, but dismissed them one after another from her mind as too preposterous to be cherished for a moment. The terrible reality never once occurred to her, else her heart had not beaten as lightly as it did, in spite of the strange story she had heard. She was glad that she had met with Nina--glad that every obstacle to their future intercourse was removed--and while she censured Arthur much she pitied him the more and scolded herself heartily for feeling so comfortable and satisfied because he had ceased to love the unfortunate Nina.
”I can't blame him for not wis.h.i.+ng to be talked about,” she said.
”Shannondale IS a horribly gossipping place, and people would have surmised everything; but the sooner they know it now the sooner it will die away. Let me think. Who will be likely to spread the news most industriously?”
Suddenly remembering Mrs. Eliakim Rogers, the busiest gossip in town, she turned Bedouin in the direction of the low brown house, standing at a little distance from the road, and was soon seated in Mrs. Eliakim's kitchen, her ostensible errand being to inquire about some plain sewing the good lady was doing for her, while her real object was to communicate as much of Arthur's story as she thought proper. Incidentally she spoke of Mr. St. Claire, and when the widow asked ”What under the sun possessed him to live as he did,” she replied by telling of NINA, his ward, who, she said, had recently come to Gra.s.sy Spring from the Asylum, adding a few items as to how Arthur chanced to be her guardian, talking as if she had known of it all the time, and saying she did not wonder that a young man like him should shrink from having it generally understood that he had a crazy girl upon his hands. He was very kind to her indeed, and no brother could treat his sister more tenderly than he treated Nina.
To every thing she said, Mrs. Eliakim smilingly a.s.sented, drawing her own conclusions the while and feeling vastly relieved when, at last, her visitor departed, leaving her at liberty to don her green calash and start for the neighbors with this precious morsel of gossip. Turning back, Edith saw her hurrying across the fields, and knew it would not be long ere all Shannondale were talking of Arthur's ward.
Arrived at home she found the dinner waiting for her, and when asked by Richard what had kept her she replied by repeating to him in substance what she had already told Mrs. Eliakim Rogers. There was this difference however, between the two stories--the one told to Richard was longer and contained more of the particulars. She did not, however, tell him of Arthur's love for Nina, or of the neglected wife, the mother of little Miggie, though why she withheld that part of the story she could not tell. She felt a strange interest in that young mother dying alone in the noisome city, and in the little child buried upon her bosom, but she had far rather talk of Nina and her marvellous beauty, feeling sure that she had at least one interested auditor, Victor, who was perfectly delighted to have the mystery of Gra.s.sy Spring unravelled, though he felt a little disappointed that it should amount to nothing more than a crazy girl, to whom Mr. St. Claire was guardian.
This feeling of Victor was in a great measure shared by the villagers, and, indeed, after a day or two of talking and wondering, the general opinion seemed to be that Arthur had magnified the evil and been altogether too much afraid of Madam Rumor, who was inclined to be rather lenient toward him, particularly as Edith Hastings took pains to tell how kind he was to Nina, who gave him oftentimes so much trouble. The tide of popular feeling was in his favor, and the sympathy which many openly expressed for him was like a dagger to the young man, who knew he did not deserve it. Still he was relieved of a great burden, and was far happier than he had been before, and even signified to Grace his willingness to mingle in society and see company at his own house. The consequence of this was throngs of visitors at Gra.s.sy Spring, said visitors always asking for Mr. St.
Claire, but caring really to see Nina, who shrank from their advances, and hiding herself in her room refused at last to go down unless Miggie were there.
MIGGIE had purposely absented herself from Gra.s.sy Spring more than two whole weeks, and when Richard asked the cause of it she answered that she did not know, and, indeed, she could not to herself define the reason of her staying so long from a place where she wished so much to be, unless it were that she had not quite recovered from the shock it gave her to know that Arthur had once been engaged, even though he had wearied of the engagement.
It seemed to her that he had built between them a barrier which she determined he should be the first to cross. So she studiously avoided him, and thus unconsciously plunged him deeper and deeper into the mire, where he was already foundering. Her apparent indifference only increased the ardor of his affection, and though he struggled against it as against a deadly sin, he could not overcome it, and at last urged on by Nina, who begged so hard for Miggie, he resolved upon going to Collingwood and taking Nina with him.