University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.
EDITH AT HOME

It was too late for Grace to call, and bidding her companion
good-bye, she galloped down the hill, while Edith,
in a meditative mood, suffered her favorite Bedouin to
walk leisurely up the carriage road which led to the rear
of the house.

“Victor Dupres!” she exclaimed, as a tall figure emerged
from the open door and came forward to meet her.
“Where did you come from?”

“From New York,” he replied, bowing very low.
“Will Mademoiselle alight?” and taking the little foot
from out the shoe he lifted her carefully from the saddle.

“Is he here?” she asked, and Victor replied,

“Certainement; and has brought home a fresh recruit
of the blues, too, judging from the length and color of
his face.”

“Why did he go to New York?” interrupted Edith,
who had puzzled her brain not a little with regard to the
business which had taken Richard so suddenly from home.

“As true as I live I don't know,” was Victor's reply.
`For once he's kept dark even to me, scouring all the
alleys, and lanes, and poor houses in the city, leaving me at
the hotel, and taking with him some of those men with brass
buttons on their coats. One day when he came back he
acted as if he were crazy and I saw the great tears drop
on the table over which he was leaning, then when I
asked `if he'd heard bad news,' he answered, `No, joyful
news. I'm perfectly happy now. I'm ready to go home,'
and he did seem happy, until we drove up to the gate and
you didn't come to meet him. `Where's Edith?' he
asked, and when Mrs. Matson said you were out, his forehead
began to tie itself up in knots, just as it does when
he is displeased. It's my opinion, Miss Edith, that you
humor him altogether too much. You are tied to him as
closely as a mother to her baby.”

Edith sighed, not because she felt the bands to which
Victor had alluded, but because she reproached herself
for not having been there to welcome the blind man home
when she knew how much he thought of these little
attentions.

“I'll make amends though, now,” she said, and remembering
the story of his disappointment, her heart swelled

with a fresh feeling of pity for the helpless Richard, who,
sitting before the blazing fire in the library, did not hear
the light step coming so softly toward him.

All the way from the station, and indeed all the way
from New York, he had pictured to himself Edith's sylphlike
form running down the steps to meet him; had felt
her warm hands in his, heard her sweet voice welcoming
him home again, and the world around him was filled with
daylight, for Edith was the sun which shone upon his
darkness. She was dearer to him now, if possible, than
when he left Collingwood, for, during his absence he had
learned that which, if she knew it, would bind her to him
by cords of gratitude too strong to be lightly broken.
She owed everything to him, and he, alas, he groaned
when he thought what he owed to her, but he loved her
all the same, and this it was which added to the keenness
of his disappointment when among the many feet which
hastened out to meet him, he listened for hers in vain.
He knew it was very pleasant in his little library whither
Victor led him; very pleasant to sit in his accustomed
chair, and feel the fire-light shining on his face, but there
was something missing, and the blue veins were swelling
on his forehead, and the lines deepening about his mouth,
when a pair of soft, white arms were wound about his
neck, two soft white hands patted his bearded cheeks, and
a voice, whose every tone made his heart throb and beat
with ecstasy, murmured in his ear,

“Dear Mr. Richard, I am so glad you've come home,
and so sorry I was not here to meet you. I did not
expect you to-night. Forgive me, won't you? There,
let me smooth the ugly wrinkles away, they make you
look so cross and old,” and the little fingers he vainly
tried to clasp, wandered caressingly over the knit brows,
while, for the first time since people began to call her Miss
Hastings, Edith's lips touched his.

Nor was she sorry when she saw how beautiful the love-light

broke all over the dark, stern face, irradiating every
feature, and giving to it an expression almost divine.

“Kiss me again, Birdie,” he said. “It is not often you
grant me such a treat,” and he held her arms about his
neck until she pressed her lips once more against his own.

Then he released her, and making her sit down beside
him, rested his hand upon her shining hair, while he asked
her how she had busied herself in his absence, if she had
missed the old dark cloud, a bit, and if she was not sorry
to have him back.

He knew just what her answer would be, and when it was
given, he took her face between his hands, and turning it
up toward him, said, “I'd give all Collingwood, darling,
just to look once into your eyes and see if—” then,
apparently changing his mind, he added, “see if you are
pleased with what I've brought you, look;” and taking
from his pocket a square box he displayed to her view an
entire set of beautiful pearls. “I wanted to buy diamonds,
but Victor said pearls were more appropriate for
a young girl like you. Are they becoming?” and he
placed some of them amid the braids of her dark hair.

Like all girls of seventeen, Edith was in raptures, nor
could he make her sit still beside him until, divested of
her riding habit, she had tried the effect of the delicate
ornaments, bracelets, ear-rings, necklace and all.

“I am so glad you like them,” he said, and he did enjoy
it very much, sitting there and listening to her as she
danced about the room, uttering little girlish screams of
delight, and asking Victor, when at last he came in —
“if she wasn't irresistible?”

Victor felt that she was, and in his polite French way
he complimented her, until Richard bade him stop, telling
him “she was already spoiled with flattery.”

The pearls being laid aside and Victor gone, Edith
resumed her accustomed seat upon a stool at Richard's
feet, and folding both hands upon his knee, looked into

his face, saying, “Well, monsieur, why did you go off to
New York so suddenly? I think you might tell me now
unless it's something I ought not to know.”

He hesitated a moment as if uncertain whether to tell
her or not; then said to her abruptly, “You've heard,
I believe, of the little child whom I saved from drowning?”

“Yes,” she answered. “Don't you know I told you
once how I used to worship you because you were so
brave. I remember, too, of praying every night in my
childish way that you might some day find the little girl.”

“Edith, I have found her,” and the nervous hands
pressed tenderly upon the beautiful head almost resting
in his lap.

“Found her!” and Edith sprang to her feet, her large
eyes growing larger, but having in them no shadow of
suspicion. “Where did you find her? Where is she now?
What is her name? Why didn't you bring her home?”
and out of breath with her rapid questioning, Edith sat
down again, while Richard laughingly replied, “Where
shall I begin to answer all your queries? Shall I take
them in order? I found out all about her in New York.”

“That explains your scouring the alleys and lanes as
Victor said you did,” interrupted Edith, and Richard
rejoined rather sharply, “What does he know about it?”

“Nothing, nothing,” returned Edith, anxious to shield
Victor from his master's anger. “I asked him what you
did in New York, and he told me that. Go on — what
is her name?”

“Eloise Temple. Her mother was a Swede, and her
father an American, much older than his wife.”

“Eloise — Eloise — Eloise.”

Edith repeated it three times.

“Where have I heard that name before? Oh, I know.
I heard Kitty Maynard telling the story to Mrs. Atherton.
Where is she, did you say, and how does she look?”

“She is with the family who adopted her as their own,

for her mother is dead. Eloise is an orphan, Edith,” and
again the broad hand touched the shining hair, pityingly
this time, while the voice which spoke of the mother was
sad and low.

Suddenly a strange, fanciful idea flashed on Edith's mind,
and looking into Richard's face she asked, “How old is
Eloise?”

“Seventeen, perhaps. Possibly, though, she's older.”

“And you, Mr. Harrington — how old are you, please?
I'll never tell as long as I live, if you don't want me to.”

She knew he was becoming rather sensitive with regard
to his age, but she thought he would not mind her knowing,
never dreaming that she of all others was the one
from whom he would, if possible, conceal the fact that he
was thirty-eight. Still he told her unreservedly, asking
her the while if she did not consider him almost her
grandfather.”

“Why, no,” she answered; “you don't look old a bit.
You haven't a single grey hair. I think you are splendid,
and so I'm sure did the mother of Eloise; didn't she?”
and the roguish black eyes looked up archly into the
blind man's face.

Remembering what Grace had said of his love affair in
Europe many years since, and adding to that the evident
interest he felt in little Eloise Temple, the case was clear
to her as daylight. The Swedish maiden was the girl who
jilted Richard Harrington, and hence his love for Eloise,
for she knew he did love her from his manner when speaking
of her and the pains he had taken to find her. He
had not answered her last question yet, for he did not understand
its drift, and when at last he spoke he said,

“Mrs. Temple esteemed me highly, I believe; and I admired
her very much. She had the sweetest voice I ever
heard, not even excepting yours, which is something like
it.”

Edith nodded to the bright face on the mirror opposite,

and the bright face nodded back as much as to say,
“I knew 'twas so.”

“Was she really handsome, this Mrs. Temple?” she
asked, anxious to know how Richard Harrington's early
love had looked.

Instinctively the hands of the blind man met together
round Edith's graceful neck, as he told her how beautiful
that Swedish mother was, with her glossy, raven hair, and
her large, soft, lustrous eyes, and as he talked, there crept
into Edith's heart a strange, inexplicable affection for that
fair young Swede, who Richard said was not as happy
with her father-husband as she should have been, and who,
emigrating to another land, had died of a homesick, broken
heart.

“I am sorry I cursed her to-day,” thought Edith, her
tears falling fast to the memory of the lonely, homesick
woman, the mother of Eloise.

“Had she married Richard,” she thought, “he would
not now be sitting here in his blindness, for she would
be with him, and Eloise, too, or some one very much like
her. I wish she were here now,” and after a moment she
asked why he had not brought the maiden home with
him. “I should love her as much as my sister,” she said;
“and you'd be happier with two of us, wouldn't you?”

“No,” he answered; “one young girl is enough for any
house. I couldn't endure two.”

“Then I ought to go away,” said Edith promptly, her
bosom swelling with a dread lest she should eventually
have to go. “Eloise has certainly the best right here.
You loved her mother, you know, and you'd rather have
her than me, wouldn't you?”

She held both his hands now within her own. She
bent her face upon them, and he felt her tears trickling
through his fingers. Surely he was not to blame if, forgetting
himself for the moment, he wound his arms about
her and hugging her to his bosom, told her that of all the

world she was the one he most wanted there at Collingwood,
there just where she was now, her head upon his
shoulder, her cheek against his own. Once she felt slightly
startled, his words were so fraught with tender passion,
but regarding him as her father, or at least her elder
brother, she could not believe he intended addressing her
save as his sister or his child, and releasing herself from
his embrace, she slid back upon her stool and said, “I'm
glad you're willing I should stay. It would kill me to go
from Collingwood now. I've been so happy here, and
found in you so kind a father.”

She would say that last word, and she did, never observing
that Richard frowned slightly as if it were to him an
unwelcome sound.

Presently Edith went on, “I think, though, this Eloise
ought to come, too, no matter how pleasant a home she
has. It is her duty to care for you who lost your sight
for her. Were I in her place, I should consider no sacrifice
too great to atone for the past. I would do everything
in the world you asked of me, and then not half repay
you.”

“Every thing, Edith? Did you say every thing?”
and it would seem that the blind eyes had for once torn
away their veil, so lovingly and wistfully they rested upon
the bowed head of the young girl, who, without looking
up, answered back,

“Yes, every thing. But I'm glad I am not this Eloise.”

“Why, Edith, why?” and the voice which asked the
question was mournful in its tone.

“Because, returned Edith, “I should not care to be under
so great obligations to any one. The burden would
be oppressive. I should be all the while wondering what
more I could do, while you, too, would be afraid that the
little kindnesses which now are prompted in a great measure
by love would be rendered from a sense of gratitude
and duty. Wouldn't it be so, Mr. Richard?”

“Yes, yes,” he whispered. You are right. I should be
jealous that what my heart craved as love would be only
gratitude. I am glad you suggested this, Edith; very,
very glad, and now let us talk no more of Eloise.”

“Ah, but I must,” cried Edith. “There are so many
things I want to know, and you've really told me nothing.
Had she brothers or sisters? Tell me that, please.”

“There was a half sister, I believe, but she is dead,”
said Richard. “They are all dead but this girl. She is
alive and happy, and sometime I will tell you more of her,
but not now. I am sorry I told you what I have.”

“So am I if I can't hear the whole,” returned Edith,
beginning to pout.

“I did intend to tell you all when I began,” said Richard,
“but I've changed my mind, and Edith, I have faith
to believe you will not repeat to any one our conversation.
Neither must you tease me about this girl. It is
not altogether an agreeable subject.”

Edith saw that he was in earnest, and knowing how
useless it would be to question him further, turned her
back upon him and gazing steadily into the fire, was wondering
what made him so queer, when by way of diverting
her mind, he said, “Did Victor tell you that Mr. St.
Claire came with us all the way from New York?”

“Mr. St. Claire, no,” and Edith brightened at once,
forgetting all about Eloise Temple. “Why then didn't
Mrs. Atherton and I see him? We went over the house
this afternoon. It's a splendid place, most as handsome
as Collingwood.”

“How would you like to live there?” asked Richard,
playfully. “One of the proposed conditions on which I
consented to receive you, was that when Mr. St. Claire had
a home of his own he was to take you off my hands; at
least, that was what he said, standing here where you sit;
and on my way from New York he reminded me of it,
inquiring for little Metaphysics, and asking if I were ready
to part with her.”

“Do you wish me to go and let Eloise come?” Edith
asked, pettishly, and Richard replied,

“No, Edith, I need you more than Arthur ever can,
and you'll stay with me, too, stay always, won't you?
Promise that you will.”

“Of course I shall,” she answered. “I'll stay until I'm
married, as I suppose I shall be sometime; everybody is.”

Richard tried to be satisfied with this reply, but it grated
harshly, and it seemed to him that a shadow deeper,
darker than any he had ever known, was creeping slowly
over him, and that Arthur St. Claire's was the presence
which brought the threatening cloud. He knew this half
jealous feeling was unworthy of him, and with a mighty
effort he shook it off, and saying to Edith, calmly, “Mr. St.
Claire asked many questions concerning you and your attainments,
and when I spoke of your passion for drawing,
lamenting that since Miss Chapin's departure, there was
in town no competent instructor, he offered to be your
teacher, provided you would come up there twice a week.
He is a very sensible young man, for when I hesitated he
guessed at once that I was revolving the propriety of
your going alone to the house of a bachelor, where there
were no females except the servants, and he said to me,
`You can come with her, if you like.”'

“So it's more proper for a young lady to be with two
gentlemen than with one, is it?” and Edith laughed merrily,
at the same time asking if Richard had accepted the
offer.

“I did, provided it met your approbation,” was the reply,
and as Victor just then appeared, the conversation
for the present ceased.

But neither Eloise nor Arthur left the minds of either
Richard or Edith, and while in her sleep that night the
latter dreamed of the gentle Eloise, who called her sister,
and from whom Arthur St. Claire strove to part her, the
former tossed restlessly upon his pillow, moaning to himself,

“I am glad I did not tell her. She must answer me
for love and not for gratitude.”