"Charley, Miss Darrell, and if it had been the Man in the Moon you could hardly look more thunderstruck. And now, if I may venture to propound so delicate a conundrum, how long is it since you lost your senses? Or had you ever any to lose, that you sit here in the present beastly state of the weather, to get comfortably drenched to the skin?"
He was holding both her hands, and looking at her as he spoke--a young man of some five-and-twenty, with grey eyes and chestnut hair, well-looking and well-dressed, and with that indescribable air of ease and fashion which belongs to the "golden youth" of New York.
"You don"t say you"re glad to see me, Dithy, and you _do_ look uncommonly blank. Will you end my agonizing suspense on this point, Miss Darrell, by saving it now, and giving me a sociable kiss?"
He made as though he would take it, but Edith drew back, laughing and blushing a little.
"You know what Gretchen says to Faust: "Love me as much as you like, but no kissing, that is vulgar." I agree with Gretchen--it is vulgar.
Oh, Mr. Stuart, what a surprise this is! I have just been reading a letter from your sister, and she doesn"t say a word of your coming."
"For the excellent reason that she knew nothing about it when that letter was written. Let me look at you, Edie. What have you been doing to yourself since I left, that you should fall away to a shadow in this manner? But perhaps your failing is the natural and inevitable result of my leaving?"
"No doubt. Life would naturally be insupportable without you. Whatever _I_ may have lost, Mr. Stuart, it is quite evident you have not lost the most striking trait in your character--your self-conceit."
"No," the young man answered; "my virtues are as lasting as they are numerous. May I ask, how it is that I have suddenly become "Mr.
Stuart," when it has been "Charley" and "dear Cousin Charley" for the past two years?"
Miss Darrell laughed a little and blushed a little again, showing very white teeth and lovely color.
"I have been reading Trixy"s letter, and it fills me with an awful respect for you and all the Stuart family. How could I presume to address as plain Charley any one so fortunate as the bosom friend of a baronet?"
"Ah!" Mr. Stuart remarked, placidly; "Trixy"s been giving you a quarter quire crossed sheets of that, has she? You really wade through that poor child"s interminable epistles, do you? I hardly know which to admire most, the genius that can write twenty pages of--nothing--or the patience which reads it, word for word. This one is Sir Victor from date to signature, I"ll swear. Well, yes, Miss Darrell, I know the baronet, and he"s a very heavy swell and a blue diamond of the first water. Talk of pedigree, there"s a pedigree, if you like. A Catheron, of Catheron, was hand and glove with Alfred the Great. He"s a very lucky young fellow, and why the G.o.ds should have singled _him_ out as the recipient of their favors, and left _me_ in the cold, is a problem I can"t solve. He"s a baronet, he has more thousands a year, and more houses in more counties than you, with your limited knowledge of arithmetic, could count. He has a fair complexion, a melancholy contrast on that point to you, my poor Edith; he has incipient, pale, yellow whiskers, he has an English accent, and he goes through life mostly in a suit of Oxford mixture and a round felt hat. He"s a very fine fellow, and I approve of him. Need I say more?"
"More would be superfluous. If you approve of him, my lord, all is said in that. And Lady Helena?"
"Lady Helena is a ponderous and venerable matron, in black silks, Chantilly lace, and marabout feathers, who would weigh down sixteen of you and me, and who worships the ground her nephew walks on. She is the daughter of a marquis and a peeress in her own right. Think of that, you poor, little, half-civilized Yankee girl, and blush to remember you never had an ancestor. But why do I waste my breath and time in these details, when Trix has narrated them already by the cubic foot. Miss Darrell, _you_ may be a mermaid or a kelpie--that sort of young person does exist, I believe, in a perpetual shower bath, but I regret to inform you _I_ am mortal--very mortal--subject to melancholy colds in the head, and depressing attacks of influenza. At the present moment, my patent leather boots are leaking at every pore, the garments I wear beneath this gray overcoat are saturated, and little rills of rain water are trickling down the small of my back.
You nursed me through one prolonged siege of fever and freezing--unless you are especially desirous of nursing me through another, perhaps we had better get out of this. I merely throw out the suggestion--it"s a matter of indifference to me."
Edith laughed and turned to go.
"As it is by no means a matter of indifference to me, I move an adjournment to the house. No, thank you, I don"t want your arm. This isn"t the fashionable side of Broadway, at four o"clock of a summer afternoon. I talk of it, as though I had been there--I who never was farther than Boston in my life, and who, judging from present appearances, never will."
"Then," said Mr. Stuart, "it"s very rash and premature to judge by present appearances, my errand here being to--Miss Darrell, doesn"t it strike you to inquire _what_ my errand here may be?"
"Shooting," Miss Darrell said, promptly.
"Shooting in March. Good Heavens, no!"
"Fishing then."
"Fishing is a delightful recreation in a rippling brook, on a hot August day, but in this month and in this weather! For a Ma.s.sachusetts young lady, Dithy, I must say your guessing education has been shamefully neglected. No, I have come for something better than either fishing or shooting--I have come for _you_."
"Charley!"
"I"ve got her note somewhere," said Charley, feeling in his pockets as they walked along, "if it hasn"t melted away in the rain. No, here it is. Did Trix, by any chance, allude to a projected tour of the governor"s and the maternal"s to Europe?"
"Yes." Her eyes were fixed eagerly on his face, her lips apart, and breathless. "Oh, Charley! what do you mean?"
In the intensity of her emotions she forgets to be formal, and becomes natural and cousinly once more.
"Ah! I am Charley again. Here is the note. As it is your healthful and refreshing custom to read your letters in the rain, I need hardly urge you to open and peruse this one."
Hardly! She tore it open, and ran over it with kindling cheeks and fast throbbing heart.
"MY DEAR EDITH: Mr. Stuart and myself, Charles and Beatrix, propose visiting Europe in May. From my son I learn that you are proficient in the French and German languages, and would be invaluable to us on the journey, besides the pleasure your society will afford us all. If you think six hundred dollars per annum sufficient recompense for your services and _all_ your expenses paid, we shall be glad to have you return (under proper female charge) with Charley. I trust this will prove acceptable to you, and that your papa will allow you to come.
The advantages of foreign travel will be of inestimable benefit to a young lady so thoroughly educated and talented as yourself. Beatrix bids me add she will never forgive you if you do not come.
"With kindest regards to Mr. and Mrs. Darrell, I remain, my dear Edith, Very sincerely yours, "CHARLOTTE STUART."
She had come to a stand still in the middle of the muddy road, while in a rapture she devoured this. Now she looked up, her face transfigured--absolutely glorified. Go to Europe! France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland! live in that radiant upper world of her dreams!
She turned to Charley, and to the unutterable surprise of that young gentleman, flung her arms around him, and gave him a frantic hug.
"Charley! Charley! _Oh_, Charley!" was all she could cry.
Mr. Stuart returned the impulsive embrace, with a prompt.i.tude and warmth that did him credit.
"I never knew a letter of my mother"s to have such a pleasant effect before. How delightful it must be to be a postman. It is yes, then, Edith?"
"Oh, Charley! as if it could be anything else? I owe this to you--I know I do. How shall I ever thank you?"
"By a repet.i.tion of your little performance. You won"t? Well, as your stepmother is looking at us out of the window, with a face of verjuice, perhaps it is just as well. You"re sure the dear old dad won"t say no?"
"Poor papa!" her radiant face clouded a little, "he _will_ miss me, but no--he couldn"t refuse me anything if he tried--least of all this.
Charley, I _do_ thank you--dear, best cousin that ever was--with all my heart!"
She held out both hands, her heart full, and br.i.m.m.i.n.g over in her black eyes. For once in his life Charley Stuart forgot to be flippant and cynical. He held the hands gently, and he looked half-laughingly, half-compa.s.sionately into the flushed, earnest face.
"You poor child!" he said; "and you think the world outside this sea, and these sandhills, is all sunshine and _coleur de rose_. Well, think so--it"s a harmless delusion, and one that won"t last. And whatever betides," he said this earnestly, "whatever this new life brings, you"ll never blame _me_, Edith, for having taken you away from the old one?"
"Never!" she answered. And she kept her word. In all the sadness--the shame, the pain of the after-time, she would never have gone back if she could--she never blamed him.
They walked on in silence. They were at the door of the ugly bleak house which Edith Darrell for eighteen years had called home, but which she was never to call home more. You would hardly have known her--so bright, so beautiful in a moment had Hope made her--a smile on her lips, her eyes like dark diamonds. For Charley, he watched her, as he might some interesting natural curiosity.
"When am I to be ready?" she asked him, softly, at the door.
"The sooner the better," he answered.
Then she opened it and went in.
CHAPTER II.
A NIGHT IN THE SNOW.