Part 39 (1/2)
”Miggie, sister, won't you?”
Edith shook her head, not very decidedly, it is true, still it was a negative shake, and Nina said, ”Arthur boy, will you?”
”No, Nina, no.”
Hia answer was determined, and poor, discouraged Nina sobbed aloud, ”Who will, who will?”
In the adjoining room there was a rustling sound--a coming footstep, and Victor Dupres appeared in the door. He had been an unwilling hearer of that conversation, and when Nina cried ”who will?” he started up, and coming into the room as if by accident, advanced to the bedside and asked in his accustomed friendly way, ”How is Nina to-night?” Then bending over her so that no one should hear, he whispered softly, ”Don't tell them, but I'll read that letter to Richard!”
Nina understood him and held his hand a moment while she looked the thanks she dared not speak.
”Nina must not talk any more” Arthur said, as Victor walked away, ”she is wearing out too fast,” and with motherly tenderness he smoothed her tumbled pillow--pushed back behind her ears the tangled curls--kissed her forehead, and then went out into the deepening night, whose cool damp air was soothing to his burning brow, and whose sheltering mantle would tell no tales of his white face or of the cry which came heaving up from where the turbulent waters lay, ”if it be possible let this temptation pa.s.s from me, or give me strength to resist it.”
His prayer was heard--the turmoil ceased at last--the waters all were stilled, and Arthur went back to Nina, a calm, quiet man, ready and willing to meet whatever the future might bring.
CHAPTER x.x.xI.
LAST DAYS.
”Aunt Hannah will stay with me to-night,” Nina said to Arthur the next day, referring to an old negress who had taken cure of her when a child; and Arthur yielded to her request the more willingly, because of his own weariness.
Accordingly old Hannah was installed watcher in the sick room, receiving orders that her patient should not on any account be permitted to talk more than was absolutely necessary. Nina heard this injunction of Arthur and a smile of cunning flitted across her face as she thought how she would turn it to her own advantage in case Hannah refused to comply with her request, which she made as soon as they were left alone.
Hannah must first prop her up in bed, she said, and then give her her port-folio, paper, pen and ink. As she expected, the negress objected at once, bidding her be still, but Nina declared her intention of talking as fast and as loudly as she could, until her wish was gratified. Then Hannah threatened calling Arthur, thereupon the willful little lady rejoined, ”I'll scream like murder, if you do, and burst every single blood-vessel I've got, so bring me the paper, please, or shall I got it myself,” and she made a motion as if the would leap upon the floor, while poor old Hannah, regretting the task she had undertaken, was compelled to submit and bring the writing materials as desired.
”Now you go to sleep,” Nina said coaxingly, and as old Hannah found but little difficulty in obeying the command, Nina was left to herself while she wrote that long, long message, a portion of which we give below.
”DEAR MR. RICHARD:
”Poor blind man! Nina is so sorry for you to-night, because she knows that what she has to tell you will crush the strong life all out of your big heart, and leave it as cold and dead as she will be when Victor reads this to you. There won't be any Nina then, for Miggie and Arthur, and a heap more, will have gone with their way out where both my mothers are lying, and Miggie'll cry, I reckon when she hears the gravel stones ruttling down just over my head, but I shall know they cannot hit me, for the coffin-lid will be between, and Nina'll lie so still. No more pain; no more buzzing; no more headache; no more darkness; won't it be grand, the rest I'm going to. I shan't be crazy in Heaven. Arthur says so; and he knows.
”Poor Arthur! It is of him and Miggie I am writing to you, if I ever can get to them; and Richard; when you hear this read, Nina'll be there with you; but you can't see her, because you're blind, and you couldn't see if you wern't, but she'll be there just the same. She'll sit upon your knee, and wind her arms around your neck, so as to comfort you when the great cry comes in, the crash like the breaking up of the winter ice on the northern ponds, and when you feel yourself all crushed like they are in the spring, listen and you'll hear her whispering, 'Poor Richard, Nina pities you so much! She'll kiss your tears away, too, though maybe you won't feel her. And, Richard, you'll do right, won't you.
You'll give Miggie up. You'll let Arthur have her, and so bring back the suns.h.i.+ne to her face. She's so pale now and sorry, and the darkness lies thickly around her.
”There are three kinds of darkness, Richard. One like mine, when the brain has a buzz in the middle, and everything is topsy-turvy.
One, like yours, when the world is all shut out with its beauty and its flowers; and then there's another, a blacker darkness when the buzz is in the heart, making it wild with pain. Such, Richard is the darkness, which lies like a pall around our beautiful sister Miggie, and it will deepen and deepen unless you do what Nina asks you to do, and what Miggie never will, because she promised that she wouldn't-----”
Then followed the entire story of the marriage performed by Richard, of the grief which followed, of Arthur's gradually growing love of Edith, of the scene of the Deering Woods, of the incidents connected with Edith's sickness, her anguish at parting with Arthur, her love for him still, her struggles to do right, and her determination to keep her engagement even though she died in doing it.
All this was told in Nina's own peculiar style; and then came her closing appeal that Richard himself should break the bonds and set poor Miggie free.
”... It will be dreadful at first, I know, and may be all three of the darknesses will close around you for a time,--darkness of the heart, darkness of the brain, and darkness of the eyes, but it will clear away and the daylight will break, in which you will be happier than in calling Miggie your wife, and knowing how she shrinks from you, suffering your caresses only because she knows she must, but feeling so sick at her stomach all the time, and wis.h.i.+ng you wouldn't touch her. I know just how it feels, for when Arthur kissed me, or took my hand, or even came in my sight, before the buzz got into my head, it made me so cold and faint and ugly, the way the Yankees mean, knowing he was my husband when I wanted Charlie Hudson. Don't subject Miggie to this horrid fate.
Be generous and give her up to Arthur. He may not deserve her more than you, but she loves him the best and that makes a heap of difference.
”It's Nina who asks it, Richard; dead Nina not a living one. She is sitting on your knee; her arms are round your neck; her face against yours and you must not tell her no, or she'll cling to you day and night, night and day; when you are in company and when you are alone. When it is dark and lonely and all but you asleep, she'll sit upon your pillow and whisper continually, 'Give Miggie up; give Miggie up,' or if you don't, and Miggie's there beside you, Nina'll stand between you; a mighty, though invisible s.h.i.+eld, and you'll feel it's but a mockery, the calling her your wife when her love is given to another.
”Good bye, now, Richard, good bye. My brain begins to buzz, my hand to tremble. The lines all run together, and I am most as blind as you. G.o.d bless you, Mr. Richard; bless you any way, but a heap more if you give Miggie up. May be He'll give you back your sight to pay for Miggie. I should rather have it than a wife who did not love me; and I'll tease Him till He'll let me bring it to you some day.
”Good bye, again, good bye.