University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
RICHARD AND EDITH.

“Oh, Mr. Arthur, you did come back,” and forgetting,
in her great joy, that Arthur was a gentleman, and she a
waiting-maid, Edith wound her arms around his neck, and
kissed him twice ere he well knew what she was doing.

For an instant the haughty young man felt a flush of
insulted dignity, but it quickly vanished when he saw the
tall form of Richard bending over the little girl and heard
him saying to her,

“Have you no welcoming kiss for me?”

“Yes, forty hundred, if you like,” and in her delight
Edith danced about the room like one insane.

Thrusting the locket slily into Arthur's hand, she whispered.

“I slept with her last night, and dreamed it was not
the first time either. Will you ask her when you see her
if she ever knew me?”

“Yes, yes,” he answered, making a gesture for her to
stop as Richard was about to speak.

“Edith,” said Richard, winding his arm around her,

“Edith, I have come to take you home — to take you to
Collingwood to live with me. Do you wish to go?”

“Ain't there ghosts at Collingwood?” asked Edith,
who, now that what she most desired was just within her
reach, began like every human being to see goblins in the
path. “Ain't there ghosts, at Collingwood? — a little boy
with golden curls, and must I sleep in the chamber with
him?”

“Poor child,” said Richard, “You too, have heard
that idle tale. Shall I tell you of the boy with golden
hair?” and holding her so close to him that he could feel
the beating of her heart and hear her soft, low breathing,
he told her all there was to tell of his half-brother Charile,
who died just one day after his young mother, and was
buried in the same coffin.

They could not return to Collingwood that night, and
the evening was spent in the private parlor which Arthur
engaged for himself and his blind friend. It was strange
how fast they grew to liking each other, and it was a
pleasant sight to look at them as they sat there in the
warm firelight which the lateness of the season made
necessary to their comfort — the one softened and toned
down by affliction and the daily cross he was compelled
to bear, the other in the first flush of youth when the
world lay all bright before him and he had naught to do
but enter the Elysian fields and pluck the fairest flowers.

It was late when they separated, but at a comparatively
early hour the next morning they assembled again, this
time to bid good-by, for their paths hereafter lay in different
directions.

“You must write to me, little metaphysics,” said Arthur,
as with hat and shawl in hand he stood in the depot on
the east side of the Hudson.

“Yes,” rejoined Richard, “she is to be my private
amanuensis, and shall let you know of our welfare, and
now, I suppose, we must go.”

It was a very pleasant ride to Edith, pleasanter than
when she came with Arthur, but a slight headache made
her drowsy, and leaning on Richard's arm she fell asleep,
nor woke until West Shannondale was reached. The
carriage was in waiting for them, and Victor sat inside.
He had come ostensibly to meet his master, but really to
see the kind of specimen he was bringing to the aristocratic
halls of Collingwood.

Long and earnest had been the discussion there concerning
the little lady; Mrs. Matson, the housekeeper,
sneering rather contemptuously at one who heretofore
had been a servant at Brier Hill. Victor, on the contrary,
stood ready to espouse her cause, thinking within himself
how he would teach her many points of etiquette of
which he knew she must necessarily be ignorant; but
firstly he would, to use his own expression, “see what
kind of metal she was made of.”

Accordingly his first act at the depot was to tread upon
her toes, pretending he did not see her, but Edith knew
he did it purposely, and while her black eyes blazed with
anger, she exclaimed,

“You wretch, how dare you be so rude?”

Assisting Richard into the carriage, Victor was about
to turn away, leaving Edith to take care of herself, when
with all the air of a queen, she said to him,

“Help me in, sir. Don't you know your business!”

“Pardonnez, moi,” returned Victor, speaking in his
mother tongue, and bowing low to the indignant child,
whom he helped to a seat by Richard.

An hour's drive brought them to the gate of Collingwood,
and Edith was certainly pardonable if she did cast
a glance of exultation in the direction of Brier Hill, as
they wound up the gravelled road and through the handsome
grounds of what henceforth was to be her home.

“I guess Mrs. Atherton will be sorry she acted so,” she
thought, and she was even revolving the expediency of

putting on airs and not speaking to her former mistress,
when the carriage stopped and Victor appeared at the
window all attention, and asking if he should “assist Miss
Hastings to alight.”

In the door Mrs. Matson was waiting to receive them,
rubbing her gold-bowed spectacles and stroking her heavy
silk with an air which would have awed a child less self-assured
than Edith. Nothing grand or elegant seemed
strange or new to her. On the contrary she took to it
naturally as if it were her native element, and now as she
stepped upon the marble floor of the lofty hall she involuntarily
cut a pirouette, exclaiming, “Oh, but isn't this
jolly! Seems as if I'd got back to Heaven. What a
splendid room to sing in,” and she began to warble a wild,
impassioned air which made Richard pause and listen,
wondering whence came the feeling which so affected him
carrying him back to the hills of Germany.

Mrs. Matson looked shocked, Victor amused, while the
sensible driver muttered to himself as he gathered up his
reins, “That gal is just what Collingwood needs to keep
it from being a dungeon.”

Mrs. Matson had seen Edith at Brier Hill, but this did
not prevent her from a close scrutiny as she conducted
her to the large, handsome chamber, which Richard
in his hasty directions of the previous morning had
said was to be hers, and which, with its light, tasteful
furniture, crimson curtains, and cheerful blazing fire seemed
to the delighted child a second paradise. Clapping her
hands she danced about the apartment, screaming, “It's
the jolliest place I ever was in.”

“What do you mean by that word jolly?” asked Mrs.
Matson, with a great deal of dignity; but ere Edith could
reply, Victor, who came up with the foreign chest, chimed
in, “She means pretty, Madame Matson, and understands
French, no doubt. Parley vous Français?” and he
turned to Edith, who, while recognizing something familiar

in the sound, felt sure he was making fun of her and
answered back, “Parley voo fool! I'll tell Mr. Harrington
how you tease me.”

Laughing aloud at her reply, Victor put the chest in
its place, made some remark concerning its quaint appearance,
and bowed himself from the room, saying to her as
he shut the door,

“Bon soir, Mademoiselle.”

“I've heard that kind of talk before,” thought Edith,
as she began to brush her hair, preparatory to going down
to supper, which Mrs. Matson said was waiting.

At the table she met with the old man, who had seen
her alight from the carriage, and had asked the mischievous
Victor, “Who was the small biped Richard had brought
home?”

“That,” said Victor. “Why, that is Charlie turned
into a girl.” And preposterous as the idea seemed, the
old man siezed upon it at once, smoothing Edith's hair
when he saw her, tapping her rosy cheeks, calling her
Charlie, and muttering to himself of the wonderful process
which had transformed his fair-haired boy into a
black-haired girl.

Sometimes the utter impossibility of the thing seemed
to penetrate even his darkened mind, and then he would
whisper, “I'll make believe it's Charlie, any way,” so
Charlie he persisted in calling her, and Richard encouraged
him in this whim, when he found how much satisfaction
it afforded the old man to “make believe.”

The day following Edith's arrival at Collingwood there
was a long consultation between Richard and Victor concerning
the little girl, about whose personal appearance
the former would now know something definite.

“How does Edith Hastings look?” he asked, and after
a moment of grave deliberation, Victor replied,

“She has a fat round face, with regular features, except
that the nose turns up somewhat after the spitfire order,

and her mouth is a trifle too wide. Her forehead is not
very high — it would not become her style if it were.
Her hair is splendid — thick, black and glossy as satin,
and her eyes,— there are not words enough either in the
French or English language with which to describe her
eyes — they are so bright and deep that nobody can look
into them long without wincing. I should say, sir, if put
on oath, there was a good deal of the deuce in her eyes.”

“When she is excited, you mean,” interrupted Richard.
“How are they in repose?”

“They are never there,” returned Victor. “They roll
and turn and flash and sparkle, and light upon one so uncomfortably,
that he begins to think of all the badness he
ever did, and to wonder if those coals of fire can't ferret
out the whole thing.”

“I like her eyes,” said Richard, “but go on. Tell me
of her complexion.”

“Black, of course,” continued Victor, “but smooth as
glass, with just enough of red in it to make rouge unnecessary.
On the whole I shouldn't wonder if in seven or
eight years' time she'd be as handsome as the young lady
of Collingwood ought to be.”

“How should she be dressed?” asked Richard, who
knew that Victor's taste upon such matters was infallible,
his mother and sister both having been Paris mantuamakers.

“She should have scarlet and crimson and dark blue
trimmed with black,” said Victor, adding that he presumed
Mrs. Atherton would willingly attend to those matters.

Richard was not so sure, but he thought it worth the
while to try, and he that night dispatched Victor to Brier
Hill with a request that she would, if convenient, call
upon him at once.

“Don't tell her what I want,” he said, “I wish to surprise
her with a sight of Edith.”

Victor promised obedience and set off for Brier Hill,

where he found no one but Rachel, sitting before the
kitchen fire, and watching the big red apples roasting upon
the hearth.

“Miss Grace had started that morning for New York,”
she said, “and the Lord only knew when she'd come
home.”

“And as he probably won't tell, I may as well go back,”
returned Victor, and bidding Rachel send her mistress to
Collingwood as soon as she should return, he bowed himself
from the room.

As Rachel said, Grace had gone to New York, and the
object of her going was to repair the wrong done to Edith
Hastings, by taking her a second time from the Asylum,
and bringing her back to Brier Hill. Day and night the
child's parting words, “You'll be sorry sometime,” rang
in her ears, until she could endure it no longer, and she astonished
the delighted Rachel by announcing her intention
of going after the little girl. With her to will was
to do, and while Victor was reporting her absence to his
master, she, half-distracted, was repeating the words of
the matron,

“Has not been here at all, and have not heard from her
either! What can it mean?”

The matron could not tell, and for several days Grace
lingered in the city, hoping Arthur would appear, but as
he failed to do this, she at last wrote to him at Geneva,
and then, in a sad, perplexed state of mind, returned to
Shannondale, wondering at and even chiding old Rachel
for evincing so little feeling at her disappointment.

But old Rachel by this time had her secret which she
meant to keep, and when at last Grace asked if any one
had called during her absence, she mentioned the names
of every one save Victor, and then tried very hard to
think “who that 'tother one was. She knowed there
was somebody else, but for the life of her she couldn't” —
Rachel did not quite dare to tell so gross a falsehood,

and so at this point she concluded to think, and added
suddenly,

“Oh, yes, I remember now. 'Twas that tall, long-haired,
scented-up, big-feelin' man they call Squire Herrin'ton's
vally.”

“Victor Dupres been here!” and Grace's face lighted
perceptibly.

“Yes, he said mouse-eer, or somethin' like that — meanin'
the squire, in course — wanted you to come up thar as
soon as you got home, and my 'pinion is that you go to
oncet. 'Twont be dark this good while.”

Nothing could be more in accordance with Grace's feelings
than to follow Rachel's advice, and, half an hour later,
Victor reported to his master that the carriage from
Brier Hill had stopped before their door. It would be
impossible to describe Mrs. Atherton's astonishment when,
on entering the parlor, the first object that met her view
was her former waiting-maid, attired in the crimson merino
which Mrs. Matson, Lulu, the chambermaid, and Victor
had gotten up between them; and which, though not
the best fit in the world, was, in color, exceedingly becoming
to the dark-eyed child, who, perched upon the
music-stool, was imitating her own operatic songs to the
infinite delight of the old man, nodding his approval of
the horrid discords.

“Edith Hastings!” she exclaimed, What are you doing
here?” Springing from the stool and advancing towards
Grance, Edith replied,

“I live here. I'm Mr. Richard's little girl. I eat at
the table with him, too, and don't have to wash the dishes
either. I'm going to be a lady just like you, ain't I, Mr.
Harrington?” and she turned to Richard, who had entered
in time to hear the last of her remarks.

There was a world of love in the sightless eyes turned
toward the little girl, and by that token, Grace Atherton
knew that Edith had spoken truly.

“Run away, Edith,” he said, “I wish to talk with the
lady alone.”

Edith obeyed, and when she was gone Richard explained
to Grace what seemed to her so mysterious, while she
in return confessed the injustice done to the child, and
told how she had sought to repair the wrong.

“I am glad you have taken her,” she said. “She will
be happier with you than with me, for she likes you best.
I think, too, she will make good use of any advantages
you may give her. She has a habit of observing closely,
while her powers of imitation are unsurpassed. She
is fond of elegance and luxury, and nothing can please
her more than to be an equal in a house like this. But
what do you wish of me? What can I do to assist you?”

In a few words Richard stated his wishes that she
should attend to Edith's wardrobe, saying he had but
little faith in Mrs. Matson's taste. He could not have
selected a better person to spend his money than Grace,
who, while purchasing nothing out of place, bought always
the most expensive articles in market, and when at last
the process was ended, and the last dressmaker gone from
Collingwood, Victor, with a quizzical expression upon his
face, handed his master a bill for five hundred dollars, that
being the exact amount expended upon Edith's wardrobe.
But Richard uttered no word of complaint. During the
few weeks she had lived with him she had crept away
down into his heart just where Charlie used to be, and
there was nothing in his power to give which he would
withhold from her now. She should have the best of teachers,
he said, particularly in music, of which she was passionately
fond.

Accordingly, in less than a week there came to Collingwood
a Boston governess, armed and equipped with all
the accomplishments of the day; and beneath the supervision
of Richard and Victor, Grace Atherton and Mrs.
Chapen, Edith's education began.