University of Virginia Library

35. CHAPTER XXXV.
LETTERS.

IN course of time there came a letter to Edna from
Roy. It had been sent by him to Aunt Jerry, and
by her to Uncle Phil, who forwarded it to his niece,
together with a few lines of his own, telling how “all-fired
lonesome he was, and how he missed her gab, and the click-clack
of her high heels on the stairs, and the whisk of her
petticoats through the doors.”

“The synagogue is getting along slowly,” he wrote, “for
the cusses—” (he erased that word as hardly consistent for a
man who was running a church, and substituted “cattle,” so
that it read) “the cattle are on another strike, what hain't
gone over to work on the Unitarian meetin' house, which is
havin' the greatest kind of overhaulin' inside and out. The
persuasion meets now in the Academy, and go it kind of
ritual, with the litany and some of the sams, which they read
slower than time in the primmer. Ruth Gardner leads off,
and is getting up another carouse to buy a Fount to dip the
young ones in, and expects to catch the new minister. But
let 'em run. Old Phil don't ask no odds of Unitarian nor
Orthodox, nor nobody else. He'll build his own church and
pay his own minister, if necessary, and burn innocence too,
if he wants to.

“I send a letter from Roy, I guess, and it has done some
travellin', too, having gone first to that remarkable woman,
your Aunt Jerushy, who wrote to me as follows:

This was Uncle Phil's letter, and Edna cried over it a little,
and knew just how lonely the old man was without her,
and half wished she had not left him, “though it would have
been dreadful never to have known Roy at all,” she said to
herself, as she opened next Aunt Jerusha's letter, in which
Roy's was enclosed, and read what that worthy woman had
to say.

There was a good deal about her “neurology,” and a sure

cure she had found for it, and about the new rector, who was
as much too low as the other had been too high, inasmuch
as he went to the Methodist prayer-meetings and took a
part in them, and said he wasn't quite sure about the direct
line down from the Apostles; it might be straight enough,
but he guessed it had been broken a few times, and had some
knots in it where it was mended, and he fully indorsed young
Tyng, and believed in Henry Ward Beecher and Woman's
Rights, all of which she considered worse than turning your
back to the people, and bowing to the floor in the creed,
and so latterly she had staid at home and read the Bible
and Prayer Book by herself, and sung a hymn and psalm,
and felt she was worshipping God quite as well as if she
had gone to church and been mad as fury all the time. She
hoped Edna felt better now she was at Leighton, though she
was a big fool for going, and a bigger one if she staid there
after that woman with a boy's name came as my lady.

“Roy was not satisfied with sending me a letter for you,
but he must needs write to me too, and tell me he was going
to be married; and that he should insist upon knowing where
you were, so he could persuade you to live at Leighton, your
proper place.

“So you see what's before you, and you know my advice,
which, of course, you won't follow. You are more than
half in love with Roy yourself; don't deny it; I know better;
and that critter with the boy's name will find it out, if
she has not already, and you'll hate one another like pisen,
and it's no place for you. Better come back to Aunt Jerusha,
and keep the district school this winter. They want
a woman teacher, because they can get her cheap, and she'll
do her work better, as if there was any justice in that. I believe
in Woman's Rights so far as equal pay for the same
work; but this scurriping through the country speech-making,
and the clothes-basket full of dirty duds at home, and

your husband's night-shirt so ragged that if took sick sudden
in the night he'd be ashamed to send for the doctor, I don't
believe in, and never will.

“Go back to Allen's Hill, and teach school, and board
with Aunt Jerusha, and do chores?” Edna repeated to herself,
as she finished the letter; she might have added, “and
leave Roy?” but she did not, though her face turned scarlet
as she recalled the words, “You are more than half in love
with Roy yourself.”

Was that true? She could not quite answer that it was,
and she tried to believe it was her attachment to Mrs.
Churchill which made Leighton so dear to her, and that
Roy had nothing to do with it, except as he helped to make
her life very pleasant. She was not in love with him, she
decided at last; if she were, she should think it her duty to
leave at once, but as it was, she should remain until the
wedding, which had not yet been appointed. Some time
before Christmas, Georgie had told her, while Mrs. Churchill
had said:

“Roy will not marry till spring.”

And she believed the latter, because she wanted to, and
saying to herself, “I shall stay till Georgie comes, for Mrs.
Churchill's sake,” she opened Roy's letter, and read the kind,
brotherly message he had written to his “dear sister Edna,
whom he wished so much to find.” There were hot blushes
on Edna's cheeks, and she felt a heart-throb of pain as she
began to read, in Roy's own words, of his engagement to

Georgie Burton. She had known it all before, it is true, and
had seen his betrothed almost every day, and received, each
time she saw her, some little malicious stab through the
medium of Edna Browning. She had also been witness, at
divers times, to various little love-passages between the engaged
pair, or rather of love-passages on Georgie's part, for
that young lady was not at all backward in asserting her
right to fondle and caress her promised husband, who was
not demonstrative, and who never of his own accord so
much as took Georgie's hand in his own, or laid a finger on
her in the presence of others. He merely submitted to her
fondlings in silence and did not shake her off, though Edna
sometimes fancied he wanted to do so, when she hung so
helplessly upon him, or put her arm around his neck, and
smoothed and caressed his hair, and called him “Roy dear.”
How he demeaned himself toward her when they were alone
Edna did not know, but seeing him always so quiet and reserved,
she had never realized that he was engaged as fully
as she did when she saw it in his own handwriting, and two
burning tears rolled down her cheeks and were impatiently
dashed away as she read:

“And now, my little sister, I have something to communicate
which may surprise you, but which I hope will please
you, inasmuch as I trust it may have a direct bearing upon
your future. I am engaged to be married to the Miss
Georgie Burton who was so kind to you and poor Charlie in
Iona. She is very nice, of course, and the most beautiful
woman I have ever met, unless it be a Miss Overton who is
here as companion for mother.”

Edna's face and neck were scarlet now, and there was a
throb of ecstasy in her heart, as she read on:

“This Miss Overton is not at all like Georgie, but quite
as beautiful, I think, and both mother and myself like her
immensely. She is nineteen, I believe, but a wee little creature,

with the roundest, sauciest eyes, the softest golden-brown
hair rippling all over her head, and the sweetest, most
innocent face, while her smile is something wonderful.
Maude Somerton, whom I wish you knew, calls her Dotty,
but to myself I call her `Brownie,' her eyes and hair are
such a pretty brown, just tinged with golden, and her complexion,
though smooth and soft, and very bright, is still a
little brownish.”

“A pretty way to talk about me, and he engaged to
Georgie,” Edna said, but not impatiently.

Indeed, she would have been well satisfied to have read
Roy's praises of herself for the entire day, and felt a little
annoyed when he turned from Miss Overton's beauty, to his
plan of having his sister at Leighton as soon as Georgie
came, and begged her to tell him where she was, that he
might come for her himself.

“Mother wants you,” he wrote, “and surely for Charlie's
sake you will heed her wishes.”

Edna wished she could believe that Mrs. Churchill would
love her when she knew who she was, but after Georgie's
insinuations she could not hope to be esteemed by either
Roy or his mother.

“They would hate and despise me,” she said, “so I shall
not let them know that Edna was ever here, and my easier
way will be not to answer Roy's letter, now or ever; I cannot
tell him I am rejoiced at his engagement, for I am not.
I don't like her; I never shall like her; I almost think I
hate her, or should if it were not so very wicked,” and
Edna's boot-heels dug into the carpet as she gave vent to
this amiable outburst.

There was nothing more of Georgie or Miss Overton in
the letter, but Edna had read enough to make her very
happy. Roy thought she was beautiful, and called her
“Brownie” to himself. Surely this was sufficient cause for

happiness, even though his marriage with another was fixed
for the ensuing spring. It was a long time till then, and she
would enjoy the present without thinking of the future, when
Leighton could no longer be her home.

This was Edna's conclusion, and folding up Roy's letter,
she went to Mrs. Churchill with so bright a look in her face,
that it must have shown itself in her manner, for Mrs. Churchill
said:

“You seem very happy this morning. You must have
had good news in the letter Russell brought you.”

“Yes; very good news. At least, a part of it was,” Edna
replied, her pulse throbbing a little regretfully, as she remembered
having seen, in Roy's own handwriting, that he
was pledged to another,—he who called her “Brownie,”
and who, as the days went by, was so very kind to her, and
who, once, when she was standing beside him, laid his hand
upon her hair, and said:

“What a little creature you are! One could toss you in
his arms as easily as he could a child.”

“Suppose you try,” said a smooth, even-toned voice, just
behind him, and the next moment Georgie appeared in
view, her black eyes flashing, but her manner very composed
and quiet.

After that, Roy did not touch Edna's hair, or talk of tossing
her in his arms. Whatever it was which Georgie said
to him with regard to Miss Overton,—and she did say something,—it
availed to put a restraint upon his manner, and
caused him to keep to himself any wishes he might have
with regard to Edna. But he watched her when she went
out, and when she came in, and listened to her voice when reading
or singing to his mother, until there would, at times, come
over him such a feeling of restlessness,—a yearning for something
he could not define,—that he would rush out into the open
air, or, mounting his swift-footed steed, ride for miles down

the river road, until the fever in his veins was abated, when
he would return to Leighton, and, if Georgie was there, sit
dutifully by her, and try to behave as an engaged man ought
to do, and get up a little enthusiasm for his bride elect. But
whether he held Georgie's white jewelled hand in his, as he
sometimes did, or felt her breath upon his cheek, as she
leaned her beautiful head upon his breast in one of her gushing
moods, he never experienced a glow of feeling like that
which throbbed through every vein did “Brownie's” soft,
dimpled hands by any chance come in contact with so much
as his coat-sleeve, or “Brownie's” dress sweep against his
feet when he was walking with her.

He did not ask himself whither all this was tending. He
did not reason at all. He was engaged to Georgie; he fully
intended to keep his engagement; he loved her, as he
believed, but that did not prevent his being very happy
in Miss Overton's society; and as the days went by he
drifted farther and farther from his betrothed, who, with all
her shrewdness, was far from suspecting the real nature of
his feelings.

During all this time, no answer had come from Edna to
Roy, who wrote again and again, until he grew desperate,
and resolved upon a second visit to Aunt Jerry Pepper,
hoping by bribe or threat to obtain some clue to Edna's
whereabouts. This intention he communicated by letter to
the worthy spinster, who replied:

It was Roy's duty to feel indignant toward one who called
his wife elect, “that thing with a boy's name,” and he made
himself believe he was, and styled her a very rude, impertinent
woman, and then he thought of what she had said about
Edna's disapproval of the match, and of Georgie's treatment
of her in Iona, and that hurt him far worse than Miss
Pepper's calling his betrothed “that thing with the boy's
name.”

What could Georgie have said or done to Edna? She
had always seemed so kindly disposed toward the girl, and
since their engagement had warmly seconded his plan of
finding her, and bringing her home. Once he thought to
speak to Georgie herself on the subject, but generously refrained
from doing so, lest she should be pained by knowing
there was any one who was not pleased with the prospect of
her being his wife. But Georgie, who was not overscrupulous
with regard to other people's property, found the letter
on the library table, where he left it, and unhesitatingly read
it through, and then that same afternoon took occasion, in
Edna's presence, to ask Roy if he had heard from his sister
yet, and to express herself as so sorry that they could not find
where she was.

“Poor little creature, so young and so childlike as she
seemed when I saw her at Iona,” she said, flashing her
great eyes first upon Roy and then upon Miss Overton.
“And so shy too of strangers. Why, I almost fancied that
she was afraid of me, she was so timid and reserved, and
possibly she was, for in my excitement I might have been a
little brusque in my manner.”

“I do not remember asking if you urged her to come here
at that time,” Roy said, thinking of Miss Pepper's letter,
while Georgie, thinking of it too, replied without the least
hesitation:

“Certainly, I did. I said all I could consistently say;
but she was too sick to undertake the journey, and then she
had a nervous dread of meeting Charlie's friends. I've since
thought it possible that she was too much stunned and bewildered
to know exactly what was said to her, or what we
meant by saying it.”

Georgie had made her explanation, and effectually removed
from Roy's mind any unpleasant impression which
Aunt Jerry's letter might have left upon it. And she was
satisfied; for it did not matter what Edna thought of her;
and still Georgie could not then meet the wondering gaze of
the brown eyes fixed so curiously upon her; and she affected
to be very much interested and occupied with a cap she was
finishing for Mrs. Churchill, and did not look at Edna, who
managed to escape from the room as soon as possible, and
who, out in the yard, had recourse to her old trick of digging
her heels into the gravel by way of relieving her feelings.

Roy made one effort more to win over Miss Pepper, but
with so poor success that he gave the matter up for a time,
and devoted himself to trying to get up a passion for his betrothed
equal to that she felt for him, and to studying and
enjoying Miss Overton, who became each day more bewildering

and enjoyable for him, while to Mrs. Churchill she
became more and more necessary, until both wondered how
they had ever existed without her.