Darkness and Daylight: A Novel

by Mary Jane Holmes

"Have you strength to hold it?"

"Yes, yes," she cried, grasping it eagerly, while, with a hand far steadier than hers, Arthur held the parchment in the flame, watching as the scorched, brown flakes dropped upon the floor, nor sending a single regret after the immense fortune he was giving up.

It was done at last. The will lay crisped and blackened upon the carpet; Edith, in her own estimation was reinstated in her rights, and then, as if demanding something for the sacrifice, Arthur turned playfully to her, and winding his arm around her said,

"Kiss me once as a sister, for such you are, and once for giving you back your inheritance."

The kisses Arthur craved were given, and need we say returned! Alas, those kisses! How they burned on Edith's lips, making her so happy—and how they blistered on Arthur's heart, making him doubt the propriety of having given or received them. His was the braver spirit now. He had buffeted the billow with a mightier struggle than Edith had ever known. Around his head a blacker, fiercer storm had blown than any she had ever felt, and from out that tumultuous sea of despair he had come a firmer, a better man, with strength to bear the burden imposed upon him. Were it not so he would never have sent for Edith Hastings—never have perilled his soul by putting himself a second time under her daily influence. But he felt that there was that within him which would make him choose the right, make him cling to Nina, and so he wrote to Edith, meeting her when she came as friend meets friend, and continually thanking Heaven which enabled him to hide from everyone the festered wound, which at the sound of her familiar voice smarted and burned, and throbbed until his soul was sick and faint with pain.

The discovery of Edith's parentage filled him with joy—joy for Nina, and joy because an opportunity was thus afforded him of doing an act unselfish to the last degree, for never for a single moment did the thought force itself upon him that possibly Edith might yet be his, and so the property come back to him again. He had given her up, surrendered her entirely, and Richard's interests were as safe with him as his gold and silver could have been. Much he wished he knew exactly the nature of her feelings toward her betrothed, but he would not so much as question Victor, who, while noticing his calmness and self-possession, marvelled greatly, wondering the while if it were possible that Arthur's love were really all bestowed on Nina. It would seem so, from the constancy with which he hung over her pillow, doing for her the thousand tender offices, which none but a devoted husband could do, never complaining, never tiring even when she taxed his good nature to its utmost limit, growing sometimes so unreasonable and peevish that even Edith wondered at his forbearance.

It was a whim of Edith's not to write to Richard of her newly- found relationship. She would rather tell it to him herself, she said, and in her first letter, she merely mentioned the incidents of her journey, saying she reached Sunnybank in safety, that Nina was no better, that Mr. St. Claire was very kind, and Victor very homesick, while she should enjoy herself quite well, were it not that she knew he was so lonely without her. And this was the letter for which Richard waited so anxiously, feeling when it came almost as if he had not had any, and still exonerating his singing bird from blame, by saying that she could not write lovingly to him so long us she knew that Mrs. Matson must be the interpreter between them.

It was an odd-looking missive which he sent back and Edith's heart ached to its very core as she saw the uneven handwriting, which went up and down, the lines running into and over each other, now diagonally, now at right angles, and again darting off in an opposite direction as he held his pencil a moment in his fingers and then began again. Still she managed to decipher it, and did not lose a single word of the message intended for Nina.

"Tell little Snowdrop the blind man sends her his blessing and his love, thinking of her often as he sits here alone these gloomy autumn nights, no Edith, no Nina, nothing but lonesome darkness. Tell her that he prays she may get well again, or if she does not, that she may be one of the bright angels which make the fields of Jordan so beautiful and fair"

This letter Edith took to Nina one day, when Arthur and Victor had gone to Tallahassee, and Mrs. Lamotte was too busy with her own matters to interrupt them. Nina had not heard of the engagement, for Arthur could not tell her, and Edith shrank from the task as from something disagreeable. Still she had a strong desire for Nina to know how irrevocably she was bound to another, hoping thus to prevent the unpleasant allusions frequently made to herself and Arthur. The excitement of finding a sister in Miggie, had in a measure overturned Nina's reason again, and for many days after the disclosure she was more than usually wild, talking at random of the most absurd things, but never for a moment losing sight of the fact that Edith was her sister. This seemed to be the one single clear point from which her confused ideas radiated, and the love she bore her sister was strong enough to clear away the tangled web of thought and bring her at last to a calmer, more natural state of mind. There were hours in which no one would suspect her of insanity, save that as she talked childish, and even meaningless expressions were mingled with what she said, showing that the woof of her intellect was defective still, and in such a condition as this Edith found her that day when, with Richard's letter in her hand, she seated herself upon the foot of the bed and said, "I heard from Richard last night. You remember him, darling?"