Part 40 (1/2)
”Now put your head down here, right on my neck--so.”
He complied with her request, and placing both her bands upon the bowed head of the young man, Nina whispered,
”May the Good Shepherd, whose lamb Nina hopes to be, keep my Arthur boy, and bless him a hundred fold for all he's been to me, and if he has wronged me, which I don't believe, but if he has, will G.o.d please forgive him as fully, as freely as Nina does--the best Arthur boy that ever lived. I'll tell G.o.d all about it, and how I pestered you, and how good you were, my Arthur boy--Nina's Arthur first and Miggie's after me. Now put your arms around me again,” she said, as she finished the blessing which brought such peace to Arthur. ”Put them around me tight, for the river is almost here. Don't you hear its splas.h.i.+ng? Miggie, Miggie,” she cried, s.h.i.+vering as with an ague chill, ”hold my hand with all your might, but don't let me pull you in. I'm going down the bank.
My feet are in the water, and it's so freezing cold. I'm sinking, too, and the big waves roll over me. Oh, Arthur, you said it would not hurt,” and the dim eyes flashed upon the weeping man a most reproachful glance, as if he had deceived her, while the feet were drawn shudderingly up, as if they had, indeed, touched the chill tide of death, and shrank affrighted from it. Edith could only sob wildly, as she grasped the clammy hand stretched toward her, but Arthur, more composed, whispered to the dying girl,
”Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou, Lord, art with me; thy staff and thy rod, they comfort me.”
”Look away to the sh.o.r.e,” he continued, as Nina ceased to struggle, and lay still on his bosom. ”Look away to the glorious city--my darling is almost there.”
”Yes, yes, I do, I am,” came faintly up, and then with a glad cry of joy, which rang in their ears for many a day and night, Nina said,
”You may lay me down, my Arthur boy, and take your arm away.
There's a stronger one than yours around me now. The arm that Miggie told me of, and it will not let me down. I'm going over so easy, easy, in a cradle-like, and Dr. Griswold's there waiting for clipped-winged birdie. He looks so glad, so happy. It is very nice to die; but stand upon the bank, Arthur and Miggie. Wait till I'm across.”
They thought she had left them, when softly, sweetly, as if it were a note of heavenly music sent back to them from the other world, there floated on the air the words,
”Climb up the bank, I'm most across. I do not see you now. MOTHER- -and Miggie's mother--and Dr. Griswold have waded out to meet me.
The darkness is pa.s.sed, the daylight has dawned; Miggie precious, and darling Arthur boy, good-bye, for Nina's gone, good-bye.”
The white lips never moved again, the waxen hands lay lifelessly in Arthur's, the damp, bright hair lay half-uncurled upon the pillow, the blue eyes were closed, the aching head was still, the ”twisted brain” had ceased to ”buzz,” the Darkness for her was over, and Nina had gone out into the Daylight.
CHAPTER x.x.xII.
PARTING WITH THE DEAD, AND PARTING WITH THE LIVING.
Softly the morning broke and the raindrops glittered like diamonds in the rising sun, whose rays fell mockingly upon desolate Sunnybank, where the howling of the blacks mingled with the sobs of those more nearly bereaved. Very troublesome had the beautiful departed been in life; none knew how troublesome one-half so well as Arthur, and yet of all the weeping band who gathered around her bed, none mourned her more truly than did he who had been her husband in name for eleven years. Eleven years! How short they seemed, looked back upon, and how much sorrow they had brought him. But this was all forgotten, and in his heart there was naught save tender love for the little maiden now forever at rest.
All the day he sat by her, and both Edith and Victor felt that it was not the mere semblance of grief he wore, while others of the household, who knew nothing of his past in connection with Edith, said to each other, ”It is strange he should love her so well when she was so much care to him.”
They did not know it was this very care for her; this bearing with her which made her so dear to him, and as the mother longs for and wishes back the unfortunate but beloved child which made her life so wearisome so Arthur mourned and wept for Nina, thanking G.o.d one moment that her poor, pain-worn head was at rest, and again murmuring to himself, ”I would that I had her back again.”
He scarcely spoke to Edith, although he knew whenever her footsteps crossed the threshold of the darkened room; knew when she bent over Nina; heard the kisses she pressed on the cold lips; and even watched until it was dry the tear she once left on Nina's cheek, but he held no communication with her, and she was left to battle with her grief alone. Once, indeed, she went to him and asked what Nina should be buried in, and this for a time roused him from his apathetic grief.
”Nina must be buried in white,” he said; ”she looked the best in that; and, Edith, I would have her curls cut off, all but those that shade her face. You have arranged them every day. Will you do so once more if I will hold her up?”
Edith would rather the task had devolved upon some one else, but she offered no objection, though her tears fell like rain when she brought the curling-stick and brush and began to separate the tangled locks, while Arthur encircled the rigid form with his arm, as carefully as if she still were living, watching her with apparent interest as she twined about her fingers the golden hair.
But when, at last, she held the scissors which were to sever those bright tresses, his fort.i.tude all gave way, for he remembered another time when he had held poor Nina, not as he held her now, but with a stronger, firmer grasp, while, by rougher hands than Edith's, those locks were shorn away. Groan after groan came from his broad chest, and his tears moistened the long ringlets he so lovingly caressed.
”You may cut them now,” he said at last, holding his breath as if the sharp steel were cutting into his heart's core, as, one by one, the yellowish curls were severed, and dropped, some into Edith's lap, while others, lodging upon his fingers, curled about them with a seemingly human touch, making him moan bitterly, as he pressed them to his lips, and then shook them gently off.
Nina's hair, like her sister's, had been her crowning glory--so thick, so wavy, so luxuriant it was; and when the task was done, and the tresses divided, five heavy curls were Arthur's and five more were Edith's.
”Where shall I put yours?” Edith asked, and for a moment Arthur did not answer.
In a rosewood box, into which he had not looked for years, there was a ma.s.s of longer, paler, more uneven curls than these, but Arthur would not distress Edith by telling her about them, and he replied, at last, ”I will put them away, myself.” Then taking them from her and going to his own private chamber, he opened the box and dropped them in, weeping when he saw how strongly they contrasted with the other faded crazy curls, as he called them.
In a plain white muslin, which had been made for Nina at Gra.s.sy Spring, they arrayed her for the coffin, the soft, rich lace encircling her throat and falling about her slender arms folded so meekly together. Flowers were twined about her head--flowers were on her pillow--flowers in her hands--flowers upon her bosom-- flowers of purest white, and meet emblems of the sweet young girl, whose features, to the last, retained the same childlike, peaceful expression which had settled upon them when she called back to Arthur, ”Climb up the bank. I'm most across.”