Part 34 (1/2)
To this note two postscripts were appended--the first in a girlish, uneven hand, was redolent of the boy Arthur's ”Florida rose.”
”Miggie, precious Miggie--come to Sunnybank; come to Nina. She is waiting for you. She wants you here--wants to lay her poor, empty head, where the bad pain used to be, on your soft, nice bosom--to shut her eyes and know it is your breath she feels--your sweet, fragrant breath, and not Arthur's, brim full of cigar smoke. Do come, Miggie, won't you? There's a heap of things I want to fix before I die, and I am dying, Miggie. I see it in my hands, so poor and thin, not one bit like they used to be, and I see it, too, in Arthur's actions. Dear Arthur boy! He is so good to me-- carries me every morning to the window, and holds me in his lap while I look out into the garden where we used to play, you and I.
I think it was you, but my brain gets so twisted, and I know the real Miggie is out under the magnolias, for it says so on the stone, but I can't help thinking you are she. Arthur has a new name for me, a real nice name, too. He took it from a book, he says--about just such a wee little girl as I am. 'Child-wife,'
that's what he calls me, and he strokes my hair so nice. I'm loving Arthur a heap, Miggie. It seems just as if he was my mother, and the name 'Child-wife' makes little bits of waves run all over me. He's a good boy, and G.o.d will pay him by and by for what he's been to me. Some folks here call me Mrs. St. Claire. Why do they? Sometimes I remember something about somebody somewhere, more than a hundred years ago, but just as I think I've got hold of it right, it goes away. I lose it entirely, and my head is so snarled up. Come and unsnarl it, wont you? Nina is sick, Nina is dying, Nina is crazy. You must come.”
The second postscript showed a bolder, firmer hand, and Edith read,
”I, too, echo Nina's words, 'Come, Miggie, come.' Nina wants you, and I--Heaven only knows how much I want you--but, Edith, were you in verity Richard's wife, you could not be more sacred to me than you are as his betrothed, and I promise solemnly that I will not seek to influence your decision. The time is surely coming when I shall be alone; no gentle Nina, sweet 'Child-wife' clinging to me.
She will be gone, and her Arthur boy, as she calls me, free to love whomsoever he will. But this shall make no difference. I have given you to Richard. I will not wrong the blind man. Heaven bless you both and bring you to us.”
The sun shone just as brightly in the summer sky--the Kauterskill fell as softly into the deep ravine--the shouts of the tourists were just us gay--the flecks of suns.h.i.+ne on the gra.s.s danced just as merrily, but Edith did not heed them. Her thoughts were riveted upon the lines she had read, and her heart throbbed with an unutterable desire to respond at once to that pleading call--to take to herself wings and fly away--away over mountain and valley, river and rill, to the fair land of flowers where Nina was, and where too was Arthur. As she read, she uttered no sound, but when at last Richard said to her,
”What is it, Birdie? Have you heard bad news?” her tears flowed at once, and leaning her head upon his shoulder, she answered,
”Nina is dying--dear little, bright-haired Nina. She has sent for me. She wants me to come so much. May I, Richard? May I go to Nina?”
”Read me the letter,” was Richard's reply, his voice unusually low and sad.
Edith could not read the whole. Arthur's postscript must be omitted, as well as a portion of Nina's, but she did the best she could, breaking down entirely when she reached the point where Nina spoke of her Arthur boy's goodness in carrying her to the window.
Richard, too, was much affected, and his voice trembled as he said, ”St. Claire is a n.o.ble fellow. I always felt strangely drawn toward him. Isn't there something between him and Nina--something more than mere guardians.h.i.+p?”
”They were engaged before she was crazy,” returned Edith, while Richard sighed, ”poor boy, poor boy! It must be worse than death.
His darkness is greater than mine.”
Then his thoughts came back to Edith's question, ”May I go to Nina?” and his first feeling was that she might, even though her going would necessarily defer a day to which he was so continually looking forward, but when he remembered the danger to which she would be exposed from the intense heat at that season of the year, he shrank from it at once, mildly but firmly refusing to let her incur the fearful risk.
”Could I be a.s.sured that my bird would fly back to me again with its plumage all unruffled I would let her go,” he said, ”but the chances are against it. You would surely sicken and die, and I cannot let you go.”
Edith offered no remonstrance, but her face was very white and her eyes strangely black as she said, ”Let us go home, then; go to- morrow. This is no place for me, with Nina dying.”
Nothing could please Richard more than to be back at Collingwood, and when Grace came to them he announced his intention of leaving on the morrow. Grace was willing, and Victor, when told of the decision, was wild with delight. Mr. Russell, too, decided to go with them to Shannondale, and when, next morning, the party came out to take the downward stage, they found him comfortably seated on the top, whither he had but little trouble in coaxing Grace, who expressed a wish to enjoy the mountain scenery as they descended.
”Will Miss Hastings come up, too?” he asked, but Edith declined and took her seat inside between Richard and Victor, the latter of whom had heard nothing of the letter; neither did Edith tell him until the next day when, arrived at Collingwood, they were alone for a moment in the library--then she explained to him that Nina was sick, possibly had sent for her.
”I thought things would work out after a time, though honestly I'd rather that little girl shouldn't die if it could be brought round any other way,” was Victor's reply, which called a flush at once to Edith's cheek.
”Victor Dupres,” said she, ”never hint such a thing again. It is too late now; it cannot be--it shall not be; and if I go, Arthur has promised not to say one word which can influence me.”
”If you go,” repeated Victor, ”Then you have some intention of going--I thought he had objected.”
”So he has,” returned Edith, the same look stealing into her eyes which came there at the Falls. ”So he has, but if Nina lives till the middle of October I shall go. My mind is made up.”
”Oh, consistency, thou art a jewel,” muttered Victor, as hearing some one coming, he walked away. ”Means to jump down the lion's throat, but does not expect to be swallowed! Splendid logic that!”
and Victor shrugged his shoulders at what seemed so contradictory as Edith's talk and Edith's conduct.
As she had said, Edith meant to go, nay more, was determined to go, and when, on the third day after their return, Mr. Russell came for her final decision, she said to him, ere Richard had time to speak,