University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.
COLLINGWOOD.

Collingwood was to have a tenant at last. For twelve
long years its massive walls of dark grey stone had
frowned in gloomy silence upon the passers-by, the terror
of the superstitious ones, who had peopled its halls with
ghosts and goblins, saying even that the snowy-haired old
man, its owner, had more than once been seen there, moving
restlessly from room to room and muttering of the
darkness which came upon him when he lost his fair
young wife and her beautiful baby Charlie. The old man
was not dead, but for years he had been a stranger to his
former home.

In foreign lands he had wandered — up and down, up
and down — from the snow-clad hills of Russia to where
the blue skies of Italy bent softly over him and the sunny
plains of France smiled on him a welcome. But the
darkness he bewailed was there as elsewhere, and to his
son he said, at last, “We will go to America, but not to
Collingwood — not where Lucy used to live, and where
the boy was born.”

So they came back again and made for themselves a
home on the shore of the silvery lake so famed in song,
where they hoped to rest from their weary journeyings.
But it was not so decreed. Slowly as poison works within
the blood, a fearful blight was stealing upon the noble,

uncomplaining Richard, who had sacrificed his early manhood
to his father's fancies, and when at last the blow had
fallen and crushed him in its might, he became as helpless
as a little child, looking to others for the aid he had
heretofore been accustomed to render. Then it was that
the weak old man emerged for a time from beneath the
cloud which had enveloped him so long, and winding his
arms around his stricken boy, said, submissively, “What
will poor Dick have me do?”

“Go to Collingwood, where I know every walk and
winding path, and where the world will not seem so
dreary, for I shall be at home.”

The father had not expected this, and his palsied hands
shook nervously; but the terrible misfortune of his son
had touched a chord of pity, and brought to his darkened
mind a vague remembrance of the years in which the unselfish
Richard had thought only of his comfort, and so
he answered sadly, “We will go to Collingwood.”

One week more, and it was known in Shannondale,
that crazy Captain Harrington and his son, the handsome
Squire Richard, were coming again to the old homestead,
which was first to be fitted up in a most princely style.
All through the summer months the extensive improvements
and repairs went on, awakening the liveliest interest
in the villagers, who busied themselves with watching and
reporting the progress of events at Collingwood. Fires
were kindled on the marble hearths, and the flames went
roaring up the broad-mouthed chimneys, frightening from
their nests of many years the croaking swallows, and
scaring away the bats, which had so long held holiday in
the deserted rooms. Partitions were removed, folding
doors were made, windows were cut down, and large
panes of glass were substituted for those of more ancient
date. The grounds and garden too were reclaimed from
the waste of briers and weeds which had so wantonly
rioted there; and the waters of the fish-pond, relieved of

their dark green slime and decaying leaves, gleamed once
more in the summer sunshine like a sheet of burnished
silver, while a fairy boat lay moored upon its bosom as in
the olden time. Softly the hillside brooklet fell, like a
miniature cascade, into the little pond, and the low music
it made blended harmoniously with the fall of the fountain
not far away.

It was indeed a beautiful place; and when the furnishing
process began, crowds of eager people daily thronged
the spacious rooms, commenting upon the carpets, the
curtains, the chandeliers, the furniture of rosewood and
marble, and marvelling much why Richard Harrington
should care for surroundings so costly and elegant. Could
it be that he intended surprising them with a bride? It
was possible — nay, more, it was highly probable that
weary of his foolish sire's continual mutterings of “Lucy
and the darkness,” he had found some fair young girl to
share the care with him, and this was her gilded cage.

Shannondale was like all country towns, and the idea
once suggested, the story rapidly gained ground, until at
last it reached the ear of Grace Atherton, the pretty young
widow, whose windows looked directly across the stretches
of meadow and woodland to where Collingwood lifted its
single tower and its walls of dark grey stone. As became
the owner of Brier Hill and the widow of a judge, Grace
held herself somewhat above the rest of the villagers, associating
with but few, and finding her society mostly in
the city not many miles away.

When her cross, gouty, phthisicy, fidgety old husband
lay sick for three whole months, she nursed him so patiently
that people wondered if it could be she loved the
surly dog, and one woman, bolder than the others, asked
her if she did.

“Love him? No,” she answered, “but I shall do my
duty.”

So when he died she made him a grand funeral, but did

not pretend that she was sorry. She was not, and the
night on which she crossed the threshold of Brier Hill a
widow of twenty-one saw her a happier woman than
when she first crossed it as a bride. Such was Grace
Atherton, a proud, independent, but well principled woman,
attending strictly to her own affairs, and expecting
others to do the same. In the gossip concerning Collingwood,
she had taken no verbal part, but there was no one
more deeply interested than herself, spite of her studied
indifference.

“You never knew the family,” a lady caller said to her
one morning, when at a rather late hour she sat languidly
sipping her rich chocolate, and daintily picking at the
snowy rolls and nicely buttered toast, “you never knew
them or you would cease to wonder why the village people
take so much interest in their movements, and are so
glad to have them back.”

“I have heard their story,” returned Mrs. Atherton,
“and I have no doubt the son is a very fine specimen of
an old bachelor; thirty-five, isn't he, or thereabouts?”

“Thirty-five!” and Kitty Maynard raised her hands in
dismay. “My dear Mrs. Atherton, he's hardly thirty yet,
and those who have seen him since his return from
Europe, pronounce him a splendid looking man, with an
air of remarkably high breeding. I wonder if there is
any truth in the report that he is to bring with him a
bride.”

“A bride, Kitty!” and the massive silver fork dropped
from Grace Atherton's hand.

She was interested now, and nervously pulling the
gathers of her white morning gown, she listened while
the loquacious Kitty told her what she knew of the imaginary
wife of Richard Harrington. The hands ceased
their working at the gathers, and assuming an air of indifference,
Grace rang her silver bell, which was immediately
answered by a singular looking girl, whom she addressed

as Edith, bidding her bring some orange marmalade
from an adjoining closet. Her orders were obeyed,
and then the child lingered by the door, listening eagerly
to the conversation which Grace had resumed concerning
Collingwood and its future mistress.

Edith Hastings was a strange child, with a strange habit
of expressing her thoughts aloud, and as she heard the
beauties of Collingwood described in Kitty Maynard's
most glowing terms, she suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, jolly
don't I wish I could live there, only I'd be afraid of that
boy who haunts the upper rooms.”

“Edith!” said Mrs. Atherton, sternly, “why are you
waiting here? Go at once to Rachel and bid her give
you something to do.”

Thus rebuked the black-eyed, black-haired, black-faced
little girl walked away, not cringingly, for Edith Hastings
possessed a spirit as proud as that of her high born mistress,
and she went slowly to the kitchen, where, under
Rachel's directions, she was soon in the mysteries of dish-washing,
while the ladies in the parlor continued their
conversation.

“I don't know what I shall do with that child,” said
Grace, as Edith's footsteps died away. I sometimes wish
I had left her where I found her.”

“Why, I thought her a very bright little creature,” said
Kitty, and her companion replied,

“She's too bright, and that's the trouble. She imitates
me in everything, walks like me, talks like me, and yesterday
I found her in the drawing-room going through
with a pantomine of receiving calls the way I do. I wish
you could have seen her stately bow when presented to
an imaginary stranger.”

“Did she do credit to you?” Kitty asked, and Grace
replied,

“I can't say that she did not, but I don't like this disposition
of hers to put on the airs of people above her.
Now if she were not a poor —

“Look, look!” interrupted Kitty, “that must be the
five hundred dollar piano sent up from Boston,” and she
directed her companion's attention to the long wagon
which was passing the house on the way to Collingwood.

This brought the conversation back from the aspiring
Edith to Richard Harrington, and as old Rachel soon
came in to remove her mistress' breakfast, Kitty took her
leave, saying as she bade her friend good morning,

“I trust it will not be long before you know him.”

“Know him!” repeated Grace, when at last she was
alone. “Just as if I had not known him to my sorrow.
Oh, Richard, Richard! maybe you'd forgive me if you
knew what I have suffered,” and the proud, beautiful eyes
filled with tears as Grace Atherton plucked the broad
green leaves from the grape vine over her head, and tearing
them in pieces scattered the fragments upon the floor
of the piazza. “Was there to be a bride at Collingwood?”
This was the question which racked her brain,
keeping her in a constant state of feverish excitement until
the very morning came when the family were expected.

Mrs. Matson, the former housekeeper, had resumed her
old position, and though she came often to Brier Hill to
consult the taste of Mrs. Atherton as to the arrangement
of curtains and furniture, Grace was too haughtily polite
to question her, and every car whistle found her at the
window watching for the carriage and a sight of its inmates.
One after another the western trains arrived, and
the soft September twilight deepened into darker night,
showing to the expectant Grace the numerous lights
shining from the windows of Collingwood. Edith Hastings,
too, imbued with something of her mistress' spirit,
was on the alert, and when the last train in which they
could possibly come, thundered through the town, her
quick ear was the first to catch the sound of wheels
grinding slowly up the hill.

“They are coming, Mrs. Atherton!” she cried; and

nimble as a squirrel she climbed the great gate post, where
with her elf locks floating about her sparkling face, she
sat, while the carriage passed slowly by, then saying to
herself, “Pshaw, it wasn't worth the trouble — I never
saw a thing,” she slid down from her high position, and
stealing in the back way so as to avoid the scolding Mrs.
Atherton was sure to give her, she crept up to her own
chamber, where she stood long by the open window,
watching the lights at Collingwood, and wondering if it
would make a person perfectly happy to be its mistress
and the bride of Richard Harrington.