University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.
NINA.

Three or four times Edith went to Grassy Spring,
seeing nothing of the mysterious occupant of the Den,
hearing nothing of her, and she began to think she might
have returned to Worcester. Many times she was on the
point of questioning Arthur, but from what had passed,
she knew how disagreeable the subject was to him, and
she generously forbore.

“I think he might tell me, any way,” she said to herself,
half poutingly, when, one morning near the latter
part of April, she rode slowly toward Grassy Spring.

Their quarrel, if quarrel it could be called, had been
made up, or, rather, tacitly forgotten, and Arthur more
than once had cursed himself for having, in a moment of
excitement, asked her to marry Richard Harrington.
While praying to be delivered from temptation he was
constantly keeping his eyes fixed upon the forbidden
fruit, longing for it more and more, and feeling how
worthless life would be to him without it. Still, by a
mighty effort, he restrained himself from doing or saying
aught which could be constrained into expressions of
love, and their interviews were much like those which
had preceded his last visit to Worcester. People were
beginning to talk about him and his beautiful pupil, but
leading the isolated life he did, it came not to his ears.
Grace indeed, might have enlightened both himself and

Edith with regard to the village gossip, but looking upon
the latter as her rival, and desiring greatly that she
should marry Arthur, she forebore from communicating
to either of them anything which would be likely to retard
an affair she fancied was progressing famously. Thus
without a counsellor or friend was Edith left to follow
the bent of her inclinations; and on this April morning,
as she rode along, mentally chiding Arthur for not entrusting
his secret to her, she wondered how she had
ever managed to be happy without him, and if the time
would ever come when her visits to Grassy Spring would
cease.

Leaving Bedouin at the rear gate she walked slowly to
the house, glancing often in the direction of the Den, the
windows of which were open this morning, and as she
came near she saw a pair of soft blue eyes peering at her
through the lattice, then a little hand was thrust outside,
beckoning to her as it did once before.

“Wait, Miggie, while I write, came next to her ear, in
a voice as sweet and plaintive as a broken lute.

Instantly Edith stopped, and at last a tiny note came
fluttering to her feet. Grasping it eagerly she read, in a
pretty, girlish hand:

“Poor little Nina,” and Edith's tears fell fast upon the

bit of paper. “I will see you to-day. Perhaps I may do
you some good. Dear, unfortunate Nina!”

There was a step upon the grass, and thrusting the
note into her pocket, Edith turned to meet Arthur, who
seemed this morning unusually cheerful and greeted her
with something like his olden tenderness. But Edith
was too intent upon Nina to think much of him, and after
the lesson commenced she appeared so abstracted that it
was Arthur's turn to ask if she were offended. She had
made herself believe she was, for notwithstanding Nina's
assertion that “Arthur was good,” she thought it a sin
and a shame for him to keep any thing but a raving lunatic
hidden away up stairs; and after a moment's hesitation
she answered, “Yes, I am offended, and I don't mean
to come here any more, unless —”

“Edith,” and the tone of Arthur's voice was fraught
with pain so exquisite that Edith paused and looked into
his face, where various emotions were plainly visible.
Love, fear, remorse, apprehension, all were blended together
in the look he fixed upon her. “You won't leave
me,” he said. “Any thing but that. Tell me my error,
and how I can atone.”

Edith was about to speak, when, on the stairs without,
— the stairs leading from the den — there was the patter
of little feet, and a gentle, timid knock was heard upon
the door.

“It's locked — go back;” and Arthur's voice had in it
a tone of command.

“Mr. St. Claire,” and Edith sprang from her chair, “I
can unlock that door, and I will.”

Like a block of marble Arthur stood while Edith opened
the oak-paneled door. Another moment and Nina stood
before her, as she stands now first before our readers.

Edith knew her in a moment from the resemblance to
the daguerreotype seen more than eight years before, and
as she now scanned her features it seemed to her they

had scarcely changed at all. Arthur had said of her then
that she was not quite sixteen, consequently she was
now nearly twenty-five, but she did not look as old as
Edith, so slight was her form, so delicate her limbs, and
so childlike and simple the expression of her face. She
was very, very fair, and Edith felt that never before had
she looked upon a face so exquisitely beautiful. Her hair
was of a reddish yellow hue, and rippled in short silken
rings all over her head, curling softly in her neck, but was
not nearly as long as it had been in the picture. Alas,
the murderous shears had more than once strayed roughly
among those golden locks, to keep the little white, fat
hands, now clasped so harmlessly together, from tearing
them out with frantic violence. Edith thought of this
and sighed, while her heart yearned toward the helpless
young creature, who stood regarding her with a scrutinizing
glance, as one studies a beautiful picture. The
face was very white — indeed, it seemed as if it were
long since the blood had visited the cheeks, which, nevertheless,
were round and plump, as were the finely moulded
arms, displayed to good advantage by the loose sleeves
of the crimson cashmere wrapper. The eyes were deeply,
darkly blue, and the strangely gleaming light which
shone from them, betrayed at once the terrible truth that
Nina was crazed.

It was a novel sight, those two young girls watching
each other so intently, both so beautiful and yet so unlike
— the one, tall, stately, and almost queen-like in her proportions,
with dark, brilliant complexion; eyes of midnight
blackness, and masses of raven hair, bound around
her head in many a heavy braid — the other, fairy-like in
size, with golden curls and soft blue eyes, which filled with
tears at last as some undefinable emotion swept over her.
In the rich, dark beauty of Edith's face there was a wonderful
fascination, which riveted the crazy girl to the spot
where she had stopped when first she crossed the thresh

old, and when at last, sinking upon the sofa, Edith extended
her arms, as a mother to her child, poor little Nina
went forward, and with a low, gasping sob, fell upon her
bosom, weeping passionately, her whole frame trembling
and her sobs so violent that Edith became alarmed, and
tried by kisses and soft endearing words to soothe her grief
and check the tears raining in torrents from her eyes.

“It's nice to cry. It takes the heavy pain away,” and
Nina made a gesture that Edith must not stop her, while
Arthur, roused from his apathy, also said,

“She has not wept before in years. It will be a great
relief.”

At the sound of his voice Nina lifted up her head, and
turned toward the corner whence it came, but Edith saw
that in the glance there was neither reproach nor fear,
nothing save trusting confidence, and her heart insensibly
softened toward him.

“Poor Arthur,” Nina murmured, and laying her head
again on Edith's bosom, she said, “Every body is sad
where I am, but I can't help it. Oh, I can't help it.
Nina's crazy, Miggie. Nina is. Poor Nina,” and the voice
which uttered these words was so sadly touching that
Edith's tears mingled with those of the young creature she
hugged the closer to her, whispering,

“I know it, darling, and I pity you so much. Maybe
you'll get well, now that you know me.”

“Yes, if you'll stay here always,” said Nina. “What
made you gone so long? I wanted you so much when
the nights were dark and lonesome, and little bits of faces
bent over me like yours used to be, Miggie — yours in
the picture, when you wore the red morocco shoe and I
led you on the high verandah.”

“What does she mean?” asked Edith, who had listened
to the words as to something not wholly new to her.

“I don't know,” returned Arthur, “unless she has confounded
you with her sister, Marguerite, who died many

years ago. I have heard that Nina, failing to speak the
real name, always called her Miggie. Possibly you resemble
Miggie's mother. I think Aunt Phillis said you
did.”

Edith, too, remembered Phillis' saying that she looked
like “Master Bernard's” wife, and Arthur's explanations
seemed highly probable.

“Dear, darling Nina,” she said, kissing the pure white
forehead, “I will be a sister to you.”

“And stay with me?” persisted Nina. “Sleep with
me nights with your arms round my neck, just like you
used to do? I hate to sleep alone, with Soph coiled up
on the floor, she scares me so, and won't answer when I
call her. Then, when I'm put in the recess, its terrible.
Don't let me go in there again, will you?”

Edith had not like Grace, looked into the large closet
adjoining the Den, and she did not know what Nina
meant, but at a venture she replied,

“No, darling. You'll be so good that they will not
wish to put you there.”

“I can't,” returned Nina, with the manner of one who
distrusted herself. “I try, because it will please Arthur,
but I must sing and dance and pull my hair when my
head feels so big and heavy, and once, Miggie, when it
was big as the house, and I pulled my hair till they shaved
it off, I tore my clothes in pieces and threw them into the
fire. Then, when Arthur came — Dr. Griswold sent for
him, you see — I buried my fingers in his hair, so,” and
she was about to clutch her own golden locks when Edith
shudderingly caught her hands and held them tightly lest
they should harm the tresses she thought so beautiful.

“Arthur cried,” continued Nina — “cried so hard that
my brain grew cool at once. It's dreadful to see a man
cry, Miggie — a great, strong man like Arthur. Poor Arthur,
didn't you cry and call me your lost Nina?”

A suppressed moan was Arthur's answer, and Nina,

when she heard it, slid from Edith's arms and crossing
over to where he sat, climbed into his lap with all the freedom
of a little child, and winding her arms about his neck,
said to him softly,

“Don't be so sorry, Arthur, Nina'll be good. Nina is
good now. He's crying again. Make him stop, wont
you? It hurts Nina so. There, poor boy,” and the little
waxen hands wiped away the tears falling so fast over
Arthur's face.

Holding one upon the end of her finger and watching it
until it dropped upon the carpet, she said with a smile,
“Look, Miggie, Men's tears are bigger than girls.”

“Oh, how Edith's heart ached for the strange couple
opposite her — the strong man and the crazy young girl
who clung to him as confidingly, as if his bosom were her
rightful resting place. She pitied them both, but her
sympathies were enlisted for Arthur, and coming to his
side she laid her hand upon the damp brown locks, which
Nina once had torn in her insane fury, and in a voice
which spoke volumes of sympathy, whispered, “I am
sorry for you.”

This was too much for Arthur, and he sobbed aloud,
while Edith, forgetting all properties in her grief for him,
bowed her face upon his head, and he could feel her hot
tears dropping on his hair.

For a moment Nina looked from one to the other in
silence, then standing upon her feet and bending over
both, she said,

“Don't cry, Miggie, don't cry, Arthur. Nina ain't
very bad to day. She wont be bad any more. Don't.
It will all come right some time. It surely will. Nina
won't be here always, and there'll be no need to cry when
she is gone.”

She seemed to think the distress was all on her account,
and in her childish way she sought to comfort them
until hope whispered to both that, as she said, “It would
come right sometime.”

Edith was the first to be comforted, for she did not,
like Arthur, know what coming right involved. She
only thought that possibly Nina's shattered intellect
might be restored, and she longed to ask the history of
one, thoughts of whom had in a measure been blended
with her whole life, during the last eight years. There was
a mystery connected with her, she knew, and she was
about to question Arthur, who had dried his tears and
was winding Nina's short curls around his fingers, when
Phillis appeared in the library, starting with surprise when
she saw the trio assembled there.

“Marster Arthur,” she began, glancing furtively at
Edith, “how came Miss Nina here? Let me take her
back. Come, honey,” and she reached out her hand to
Nina, who, jumping again upon Arthur's knee, clung to
him closely, exclaiming, “No, no, old Phillis; Nina's
good — Nina'll stay with Miggie!” and as if fancying
that Edith would be a surer protector than Arthur, she
slid from his lap and running to the sofa where Edith sat,
half hid herself behind her, whispering, “Send her off —
send her off. Let me stay with you!”

Edith was fearful that Nina's presence might interfere
with the story she meant to hear, but she could not find
it in her heart to send away the little girl clinging so
fondly to her, and to Phillis she said, “She may stay this
once, I am sure. I will answer for her good behavior.”

“'Taint that — 'taint that,” muttered Phillis, jerking
herself from the room, “but how's the disgrace to be
kep' ef everybody sees her.”

“Disgrace!” and Edith glanced inquiringly at Arthur.

She could not believe that Nina was any disgrace, and
she asked what Phillis meant.

Crossing the room Arthur sat down upon the sofa with
Nina between himself and Edith, who was pleased to see
that he wound his arm around the young girl as if she
were dear to him, notwithstanding her disgrace. Like a

child Nina played with his watch chain, his coat buttons,
and his fingers, apparently oblivious to what was passing
about her. She only felt that she was where she wished
to be, and knowing that he could say before her what he
pleased without the least danger of her comprehending a
word, Arthur, much to Edith's surprise, began:

“You have seen Nina, Miss Hastings. You know
what is the mystery at Grassy Spring — the mystery
about which the villagers are beginning to gossip, so
Phillis says, but now that you have seen, now that you
know she is here, I care not for the rest. The keenest
pang is over and I am beginning already to feel better.
Concealment is not in accordance with my nature, and
it has worn on me terribly. Years ago you knew of
Nina; it is due to you now that you know who she is,
and why her destiny is linked to mine. Listen, then,
while I tell you her sad story.”

“But she,” interrupted Edith, pointing to Nina, whose
blue eyes were turned to Arthur. “Will it not be better
to wait? Won't she understand?”

“Not a word,” he replied. “She's amusing herself,
you see, with my buttons, and when these fail, I'll give
her my drawing pencil, or some one of the numerous playthings
I always keep in my pocket for her. She seldom
comprehends what we say and never remembers it. This
is one of the peculiar phases of her insanity.”

“Poor child,” said Edith, involuntarily caressing Nina,
who smiled up in her face, and leaning her head upon her
shoulder, continued her play with the buttons.

Meanwhile Arthur sat lost in thought, determining in
his own mind how much he should tell Edith of Nina,
and how much withhold. He could not tell her all, even
though he knew that by keeping back a part, much of
his past conduct would seem wholly inexplicable, but he
could not help it, and when at last he saw that Edith was
waiting for him, he pressed his hands a moment against

his heart to stop its violent beating, and drawing a long,
long sigh, began the story.