 | CHAPTER XXXIII.
EDITH'S GREAT TEMPTATION. What can she do? |  |
33. CHAPTER XXXIII.
EDITH'S GREAT TEMPTATION.
THOUGH even Mrs. Allen was tearful and kind
in her greeting, and Laura warm and affectionate
in the extreme, old Hannibal's welcome, so
frank, genuine, and innocent, seemed to soften Zell
more than any one's else.
“You poor, heavenly-minded old fool,” she said,
with an unwonted tear in her eye, “you don't know
any better.”
Then she seemed to settle down into a dreamy
apathy; to sit moping around in shadowy places.
She had a horror of meeting any one, even Mrs.
Lacey and Rose, and would not go out till after
night. Edith saw, more and more clearly, that she
was almost insane in her shame and despair, and
that she would be a terrible burden to them all if
she remained in such a condition; but her love and
patience did not fail. It would, had it not been
daily fed from heavenly sources. “I must try to
show her Jesus' love through mine,” she thought.
Poor Edith, the great temptation of her life was
soon to assail her. It was aimed at her weakest
yet noblest side, her young enthusiasm and spirit of
self-sacrifice for others. And yet, it was but the
natural fruit of woman's helplessness and Mrs.
and difficulty.
Simon Crowl had ostensibly made a very fair
transaction with Edith, but Simon Crowl was a
widower at the time, and on the lookout for a wife.
He was a pretty sharp business-man, Crowl was, or
he wouldn't have become so rich in little Pushton,
and he at once was satisfied that Edith, so beautiful,
so sensible, would answer. Through the mortgage
he might capture her, as it were, for even his vanity
did not promise him much success in the ordinary
ways of love-making. So the spider spun his web,
and unconscious Edith was the poor little fly.
During the summer he watched her closely, but from
a distance. During the autumn and winter he commenced
calling, ostensibly on Mrs. Allen, whom he
at once managed to impress with the fact that he
was very rich. Though he brushed up his best coat
and manners, that delicate-nosed lady scented an
air and manner very different from what she had
been accustomed to, but she was half-dead with
ennui, and, after all, there was something akin between
worldly Mrs. Allen and worldly Mr. Crowl.
Then, he was very rich. This had covered a multitude
of sins on the Avenue. But, in the miserable
poverty of Pushton, it was a golden mantle of light.
Mrs. Allen chafed at privation and want of delicacies,
with the increasing persistency of an utterly
weak and selfish nature. She had no faith in Edith's
plans, and no faith in woman's working, and the
garden seemed the wildest dream of all. Her hard,
Edith, and she began to doubt herself.
Mr. Crowl (timid lover) had in Edith's absence
confirmed his previous hints, thrown out to Mrs.
Allen as feelers, by making a definite proposition.
In brief, he had offered to settle twenty-five thousand
dollars on Edith the day she married him, and
to take care of the rest of the family.
“I have made enough,” he said majestically,
“to live the rest of my life like a gentleman, and
this offer is princely, if I say it myself. You can
all ride in your carriage again.” Then he added,
with his little black eyes growing hard and cunning,
“If your daughter won't accept my generosity, our
relationship becomes merely one of business. Of
course I will foreclose. Money is scarce here, and I
will probably be able to buy in the place at half its
worth. Seems to me,” he concluded, looking at
the case from his valuation of money, “there is not
much room for choice here.”
And Mr. Crowl had been princely — for him.
Mrs. Allen thought so too, and lent herself to the
scheme with all the persistent energy that she could
show in these matters. But, to do her justice, she
really thought she was doing what was best for
Edith and them all. She was acting in accordance
with her life-long principle of providing for
her family, in the one way she believed in and
understood. But sincerity and singleness of purpose
made her all the more dangerous a tempter.
In one of Edith's most discouraged moods she
offer, for he, prudent man, had left it to her.
Edith started violently, and the whole thing was
so revolting to her that she fled from the room.
But Mrs. Allen, with her small pertinacity, kept recurring
to it at every opportunity. Though it may
seem a little strange, her mother's action did not so
shock Edith as some might expect, nor did even the
proposition seem so impossible as it might to some
girls. She had been accustomed, through her
mother, to the idea of marrying for money all her
life, and we can get used to about everything.
In March their money was very low. Going to
Zell and taking care of her had involved much
additional expense. She found out that her mother
had already accepted and used in part a loan of fifty
dollars from Mr. Crowl. Laura, from the long
confinement of the winter, and from living on fare
too coarse and lacking in nutrition for her delicate
organization, was growing very feeble. Zell seemed
in the first stages of consumption, and would soon
be a sick, helpless burden. The chill of dread grew
stronger at Edith's heart.
“Oh, can it be possible that I shall be driven to
it!” she often groaned; and she now saw, as poor
Laura said, “the black hand in the dark pushing
her down.” To her surprise her thoughts kept reverting
to Arden Lacey.
“What will he think of me if I do this?” she
thought, with intense bitterness. “He will tell me
I was not worthy of his friendship, much less of his
Arden, after all, perhaps, had the most weight in
restraining her from the fatal step. For then, to
her perverted sense of duty, this marriage began to
seem like a heroic self-sacrifice.
She had seen little of Arden since her return.
He was kind and respectful as ever, outwardly, but
she saw in his deep blue eyes that she was the
divinity that he still worshipped with unfaltering
devotion, and as she once smiled at the idea of being
set up as an idol in his heart, she now began to
dread falling from her pedestal unspeakably.
One dreary day, the last of March, when sleet
and rain were pouring steadily down, and Laura
was sick in her bed, and Zell moping with her
hacking cough over the fire, with Hannibal in the
kitchen, Mrs. Allen turned suddenly to Edith, and
said:
“On some such day we will all be turned into
the street. You could save us, you could save
yourself, by taking a kind, rich man for your lawful
husband; but you won't.”
Then Satan, who is always on hand when we
are weakest, quoted Scripture to Edith as he did
once before. The words flashed into her mind,
“He saved others, himself he cannot save.”
In a wild, mingled moment of enthusiasm and
desperation, she sprang up before her mother, and
said, “If I can't pay the interest of the mortgage—
if I can't take care of you all by some kind of work,
I will marry him. But if you have a spark of love
way.”
Mrs. Allen smiled triumphantly, and tried in her
gratitude to embrace her daughter, saying, “A kind
husband will soon lift all burdens off your shoulders.”
The burden on the heart Mrs. Allen did not
understand, but Edith fled from her to her own
room.
In a little while her excitement and enthusiasm
died away, and life began to look gaunt and bare.
Even her Saviour's face seemed hidden, and she
only saw an ugly spectre in the future—Simon
Crowl.
In vain she repeated to herself, “He sacrificed
Himself for others—so will I.” The nature that
He had given her revolted at it all, and though she
could not understand it, she began to find a jarring
discord between herself and all things.
Mrs. Allen told Mr. Crowl of her success, and he
looked upon things as settled. He came to the
house quite often, but did not stay long or assume
any familiarity with Edith. He was a wary old
spider; and under Mrs. Allen's hints, behaved and
looked very respectably. Her certainly did the
best he could not to appear hideous to Edith, who
compelled herself to treat him civilly, though she
was very cold, and perhaps many might have considered
Edith's chance a very good one.
But Edith, with an almost desperate energy, set
her mind at work to find some other way out of her
desperate straits. But everything seemed against
rheumatism. Mrs. Groody was away, and would
not be back till the last of May. On account of
Arden she could not speak to Mrs. Lacey. She
tried in vain to get work, but at that season there
was nothing in Pushton which she could do. Farmers
were beginning to get out a little on their wet
lands, and various out-of-door activities to revive
after the winter stagnation. Moreover, money was
very scarce at that season of the year. She at last
turned to the garden as her only resource. She realized
that she had scarcely money enough to carry
them through May. Could she get returns from
her garden in time? Could it be made to yield
enough to support them? With an almost desperate
energy she worked in it whenever the weather permitted
through April, and kept Hannibal at it also.
Indeed, she had little mercy on the old man, and he
wondered at her. One day he ventured:
“Miss Edie, you jes done kill us both,” but his
wonder increased as she muttered;
“Perhaps it would be the best thing for us both.”
Then, seeing his panic-stricken face, she added more
kindly, “Hannibal, our money is getting low, and
the garden is our only chance.”
After that he worked patiently without a word
and without a thought of sparing himself.
Edith insisted on the closest economy in the
house, though she was too sensible to stint herself
in food in view of her constant toil. But one day
she detected Mrs. Allen with her small cunning and
wastefulness. Edith turned on her with such fierceness
that she never dared repeat the act. Indeed,
Edith was becoming very much what she was before
Zell ran away, only in addition there was something
akin, at times, to Zell's own hardness and recklessness,
and one day she said to Edith:
“What is the matter? You are becoming like
me.”
Edith fled to her room, and sobbed and cried and
tried to pray till her strength was gone. The sweet
trust and peace she once enjoyed seemed like a
past dream. She was learning by bitter experience
that it can never be right to do wrong, and that a
false step at first, like a false premise, lead to sad
conclusions.
She had insisted that her mother should not
speak of the matter till it became absolutely necessary,
therefore Laura, Zell, and none of her friends
could understand her.
Arden was the most puzzled and pained of all,
for she shrank from him with increasing dread. He
was now back at his farm work, though he said to
Edith one day despondently that he had no heart
to work, for the mortgage on their place would probably
be foreclosed in the Fall. She longed to tell
him how she was situated, but she saw he was unable
to help her, and she dreaded to see the scorn
come into his trusting, loving eyes; she could not
endure his absolute confidence in her, and in his
presence her heart ached as if it would break, so
sighed:
“There's something wrong; she finds I am not
congenial. I shall lose her friendship,” and his aching
heart also admitted, as never before, how dear
it was to him.
Nature was awakening with the rapture of
another Spring; birds were coming back to old
haunts with ecstatic songs; flowers budding into
their brief but exquisite life, and the trees aglow
with fragrant prophecies of fruit; but a Winter of
fear and doubt was chilling these two hearts into
something far worse than Nature's seeming death.
| CHAPTER XXXIII.
EDITH'S GREAT TEMPTATION. What can she do? | |