Part 47 (1/2)
So Edith donned the pink dress, and clasping upon her neck and arms the delicate ornaments made from Nina's hair, asked of Arthur, ”How she looked.”
”Splendidly,” he replied, ”Handsomer even than on our bridal night.”
And Edith was handsomer than on the night when she stood at the altar a bride, for six years of almost perfect happiness had chased away the restless, careworn, sorrowful look which was fast becoming habitual, and now, at twenty-six, Edith St. Claire was p.r.o.nounced by the world the most strikingly beautiful woman of her age. Poets had sung of her charms, artists had transferred them to canvas; brainless beaux, who would as soon rave about a married woman as a single one, provided it were the fas.h.i.+on so to do, had stamped them upon their hearts; envious females had picked them all to pieces, declaring her too tall, too black, too hoydenish to be even pretty; while little d.i.c.k and Nina likened her to the angels, wondering if there were anything in heaven, save Aunt Nina, as beautiful as she. And this was Edith, who when her toilet was completed went down to meet Grace Atherton just arrived and greatly flurried when she heard that Richard had come. Very earnestly the two ladies were talking together when Arthur glanced in for a moment and then hastened up to Richard, whom he found sitting by the window, with d.i.c.k and Nina both seated in his lap, the former utterly astounded at the accuracy with which his blind uncle guessed every time how many fingers he held up!
”Father! father!” he screamed, as Arthur came in, ”He can see just as good as if he wasn't blind!” and he looked with childish curiosity into the eyes which had discovered in his infantile features more than one trace of the Swedish Petrea, grandmother to the boy.
Arthur smiled and without replying to his son, said to Richard,
”I have come now to take you to Edith. Grace Atherton is there, too--a wonderfully young and handsome woman for forty-two. I am not sure that you can tell them apart.
”I could tell your wife from all the world,” was Richard's answer, as putting down the children and resuming the green shade, he went with Arthur to the door of the library, where Grace and Edith, standing with their backs to them were too much engaged to notice that more than Arthur was coming.
Him Edith heard, and turning towards him she was about to speak, when Richard lowered the green shade he had raised for a single moment, and walking up to her took her hand in his. Twining his fingers around her slender wrist he said to her,
”Come with me to the window and sit on a stool at my feet just as you used to do.”
Edith was surprised, and stammered out something about Grace's being in the room.
”Never mind Mrs. Atherton,” he said, ”I will attend to her by and by--my business is now with you,” and he led her to the window, where Arthur had carried a stool.
Like lightning the truth flashed upon Grace, and with a nervous glance at the mirror to see how she herself was looking that afternoon, she stood motionless, while Richard das.h.i.+ng the shade to the floor, said to the startled Edith,
”The blind man would know how Petrea's daughter looks.”
With a frightened shriek Edith covered up her face, and laying her head in its old resting place, Richard's lap, exclaimed,
”No, no, oh no, Richard. Please do not look at me now. Help me, Arthur. Don't let him,” she continued, as she felt the strong hands removing her own by force. But Arthur only replied by lifting up her head himself and holding in his own the struggling hands, while Richard examined a face seen now for the first time since its early babyhood. Oh how scrutinisingly he scanned that face, with its brilliant black eyes, where tears were glittering like diamonds in the sunlight, its rich healthful bloom, its proudly curved lip, its dimpled chin and soft, round cheeks What did he think of it? Did it meet his expectations? Was the face he had known so long in his darkness as Edith's, natural when seen by daylight? Mingled there no shadow of disappointment in the reality? Was Arthur's Edith at all like Richard's singing bird?
How Arthur wished he knew. But Richard kept his own counsel, for a time at least. He did not say what he thought of her. He only kissed the lips beginning to quiver with something like a grieved expression that Arthur should hold her so long, kissed them twice, and with his hand wiped her tears away, saying playfully,
”'Tis too bad, Birdie, I know, but I've antic.i.p.ated this hour so long.”
He had not called her Birdie before, and the familiar name compensated for all the pain which Edith had suffered when she saw those strangely black eyes fastened upon her, and knew that they could see. Springing to her feet the moment, she was released, she jumped into his lap in her old impetuous way, and winding her arms around his neck, sobbed out,
”I am so glad, Richard, so glad. You can't begin to guess how glad, and I've prayed for this every night and every day, Arthur and I. Didn't we, Arthur? Dear, dear Richard. I love you so much.”
”What he make mam-ma cry for?” asked a childish voice from the comer where little d.i.c.k stood, half frightened at what he saw, his tiny fist doubled ready to do battle for mother in case he should make up his mind that her rights were invaded.
This had the effect of rousing Edith, who, faint with excitement, was led by Arthur out into the open air, thus leaving Richard alone with his first love of twenty-five years ago. It did not seem to him possible that so many years had pa.s.sed over the face which, at seventeen, was marvellously beautiful, and which still was very, very fair and youthful in its look, for Grace was wondrously well preserved and never pa.s.sed for over thirty, save among the envious ones, who, old themselves, strove hard to make others older still.
”Time has dealt lightly with you, Grace,” Richard said, after the first curious glance. ”I could almost fancy you were Grace Elmendorff yet,” and he lifted gallantly one of her chestnut curls, just as he used to do in years agone, when she was Grace Elmendorff.
This little act recalled so vivedly the scenes of other days that Grace burst into a flood of tears, and hurried from the room to the parlor adjoining, where, un.o.bserved, she could weep again over the hopes forever fled. Thus left to himself, with the exception of little d.i.c.k, Richard had leisure to look about him, descrying ere long the life-sized portrait of Nina hanging on the wall. In an instant he stood before what was to him, not so much a picture painted on rude canvas, as a living reality--the golden-haired angel, who was now as closely identified with his every thought and feeling as even Edith herself had ever been. She had followed him over land and sea, bringing comfort to him in his dark hours of pain, coloring his dreams with rainbow hues of promise, buoying him up and bidding him wait a little--try yet longer, when the only hope worth his living for now seemed to be dying out, and when at last it, the wonderful cure, was done, and those gathered around him said each to the other ”He will see,” he heard nothing for the buzzing sound which filled his ear, and the low voice whispering to him, ”I did it--brought the daylight straight from heaven. G.o.d said I might--and I did. Nina takes care of you.”
They told him that he had fainted from excess of joy, but Richard believed that Nina had been with him all the same, cheris.h.i.+ng that conviction even to this hour, when he stood there face to face with her, unconsciously saying to himself, ”Gloriously beautiful Nina. In all my imaginings of you I never saw aught so fair as this. Edith is beautiful, but not--”
”As beautiful as Nina was, am I?” said a voice behind him, and turning round, Richard drew Edith to his side, and encircling her with his arm answered frankly,
”No, my child, you are not as beautiful as Nina.”
”Disappointed in me, are you not? Tell me honestly,” and Edith peered up half-archly, half-timidly into the eyes whose glance she scarcely yet dared meet.