Darkness and Daylight: A Novel

by Mary Jane Holmes

The next day when Grace came up to call on Edith, and was told of the change, she shrugged her shoulders, for she knew that by this delay Richard stood far less chance of ever calling Edith his wife. But she merely said it was well, congratulating Edith upon her good fortune in being an heiress, and asking many questions about Arthur and Nina, both, and at last taking her leave without a hint as to her suspicions of the future. To Edith the idea had never occurred. She should marry Richard of course, and nothing could happen to defer the day a third time. So she said at least to Victor, when she told him of the arrangement, and with a very expressive whistle, Victor, too, shrugged his shoulders, thinking, that possibly he need not read Nina's letter after all. He would rather not if it could be avoided, for he knew how keen the pang it would indict upon his noble master, and he would not add one unnecessary drop to the cup of sorrow he saw preparing for poor Richard.

After a few days of listless languor and pining home-sickness, Edith settled into her olden routine of reading, talking and singing to Richard, who thought himself happy even though she did not caress him as often as she used to do, and was sometimes impatient and even ill-natured towards him.

"She mourns so much for Nina," was the excuse which Richard wrote down in his heart for all her sins, either of omission or commission; and in a measure he was right.

Edith did mourn for sweet little Nina, but mourned not half so much for her as for the hopes forever fled—for Arthur, at whose silence she greatly marvelled, thinking that she would write to him as to her brother, and then shrinking from the task because she knew not what to say.

Spite of her feelings the six months she had thought so long were passing far too rapidly to suit her. Time lingers for no one, and January glided into February, February into March, whose melting snows and wailing winds gave place at last to April, and then again the people of Shannondale begun to talk of "that wedding," fixed for the 15th of June. Marie had become domesticated at Collingwood, but the negroes, who now called Edith mistress, still remained at Grassy Spring, waiting until Arthur should come, or some message be received from him. It was four months now since Edith left Sunnybank, and in all that time no tiding had come to her from Arthur. Grace's letters were unanswered, and Grace herself was beginning to feel alarmed, when one afternoon, Victor called Edith to an upper balcony and pointing in the direction of Grassy Spring, bade her look where the graceful columns of smoke were rising from all its chimneys, while its windows were opened wide, and the servants hurried in and out, seemingly big with some important event.

"Saddle Bedouin," said Edith, more excited than she had deemed it possible for her to be. "Mr. St. Claire must be expected, I am going down to see."

Victor obeyed, and without a word to Richard, Edith was soon galloping off toward Grassy Spring, where she found Grace hurriedly giving orders to the delighted blacks, who tumbled over each other in their zeal to have everything in readiness for "Marster Arthur." He was coming that night, so Grace had told them, she having received a telegram that morning from New York, together with a letter.

"He started North the first of Feb." she said to Edith, "taking Richmond on the way, and has been detained there ever since by sickness. He is very feeble yet, but is anxious to see us all. He has received no letters from me, it seems, and thinks you are married."

Edith turned very white for a moment, and then there burned upon her cheek a round, red spot, induced by the feeling that the believing she was married had been the immediate cause of Arthur's illness. Edith was no longer the pale, listless woman who moved so like a breathing statue around Collingwood, but a flushed, excited creature, flitting from room to room, and entering heart and soul into Grace's plans for having everything about the house as cheerful and homelike as possible for the invalid. She should stay to welcome him, too, she said, bidding one of the negroes put Bedouin in the stable and then go up to Collingwood to tell Richard where she was.

Arthur was indeed coming to Grassy Spring, brought thither by the knowing that something must be done with the place ere he went to Europe as he intended doing, and by the feverish desire to see Edith once more even though she were the wife of Richard, as he supposed her to be. Grace's first letter had been lost, and as he had been some weeks on the way he knew nothing of matters at Collingwood, though occasionally there crept into his heart a throb of hope that possibly for Nina's sake the marriage had been deferred and Edith might be Edith Hastings still. It was very sad coming back to the spot so fraught with memories of Nina, and this it was in part which made him look so pale and haggard when at last he stood within the hall and was met by Grace, who uttered an exclamation of surprise at seeing him so changed.