said Edith, her black eyes flashing with something of their former fire.
She had forgotten the scene in the kitchen of Brier Hill when Rachel whispered to her that Grace Atherton was in love, and she had now no suspicion that the calm, white-faced woman sitting there before her was the being she would curse. Neither was her emotion caused, as Grace imagined, by any dread lest the early love of Richard Harrington should stand between herself and him.
The thought that SHE could be his wife had never crossed her brain, and her feelings were those of indignation toward a person who could thus cruelly deceive a man as n.o.ble and good as Richard, and of pity for him who had been so deceived.
"I will love him all the more and be the kinder to him for this vile creature"s desertion," she thought, as she beat the floor nervously with the little prunella gaiter, and this was all the good Grace Atherton had achieved.
Edith had cursed her to her face, and with a sigh audible only to herself she arose and said laughingly, "It"s time we were off, and you"ve certainly admired that figure in the gla.s.s long enough.
What do you think of yourself, any way?"
"Why," returned Edith, in the same light, bantering tone, "I think I"m rather jolie, as I used to say. I wonder where I picked up that word. Victor says I must have had a French nurse, but I"m sure I was too poor for that. I wish I knew where I did come from and who I am. It"s terrible, this uncertainty as to one"s birth. I may be marrying my brother one of these days, who knows?"
"See rather that you do not marry your father," retorted Grace, following Edith as she tripped down the stairs and down the walk, whipping the tufts of box as she went, and answering to Grace who asked if she did not sometimes find her duties irksome at Collingwood. "Never, never. The links of my chains are all made of love and so they do not chafe. Then, too, when I remember what Richard has done for me and how few sources of happiness he has, I am willing to give my whole life to him, if need be. Why, Mrs.
Atherton, you can"t imagine how his dark features light up with joy, when on his return from riding or from transacting business he hears me in the hall, and knows that I am there to meet him,"
and Edith"s bright face sparkled and glowed as she thought how often the blind man had blessed her with his sightless but speaking eyes, when she gave up some darling project which would take her from his side and stayed to cheer his solitude.
They had mounted their horses by this time, and at the speed which characterized Edith"s riding, dashed down the road and struck into the woods, the shortest route to Gra.s.sy Spring. With the exception of Collingwood, Gra.s.sy Spring was the handsomest country seat for miles around, and thinking, as she continually did, of Nina, Edith rather gave it the preference as she pa.s.sed slowly through the grounds and drew near to the building. Grace had seen the housekeeper, Mrs. Johnson, a talkative old lady, who, big with the importance of her office, showed them over the house, pointing out this elegant piece of furniture and that handsome room with quite as much satisfaction as if it had all belonged to herself.
In the third story, and only accessible by two flights of stairs leading from Arthur"s suite of rooms, was a large square apartment, the door of which Mrs. Johnson unlocked with a mysterious shake of the head, saying to the ladies, "The Lord only knows what this place is for. Mr. St. Claire must have fixed it himself for I found it locked tighter than a drum, but I accidentally found on the but"ry shelf a rusty old key, that fits it to a T. I"ve been in here once and bein" you"re his kin,"
nodding to Grace, "and t"other one is with you, it can"t do an atom of harm for you to go. He"s took more pains with this chamber than with all the rest, and when I asked what "twas for, he said it was his "den," where he could hide if he wanted to."
"Don"t go," whispered Edith, pulling at Grace"s dress, "Mr. St.
Claire might not like it."
But Grace felt no such scruples, and was already across the threshold, leaving Edith by the door.
"It"s as bad to look in as to go in," thought Edith, and conquering her curiosity with a mighty effort, she walked resolutely down stairs, having seen nothing save that the carpet was of the richest velvet and that the windows had across them slender iron bars, rather ornamental than otherwise, and so arranged as to exclude neither light nor air.
Grace, on the contrary, examined the apartment thoroughly, thinking Mrs. Johnson right when she said that more pains had been taken with this room than with all the others. The furniture was of the most expensive and elegant kind. Handsome rosewood easy- chairs and sofas covered with rich satin damask, the color and pattern corresponding with the carpet and curtains. Ottomans, divans and footstools were scattered about--pictures and mirrors adorned the walls, while in one corner, covered with a misty veil of lace, hung the portrait of a female in the full, rich bloom of womanhood, her light chestnut curls falling about her uncovered neck, and her dreamy eyes of blue having in them an expression much like that which Edith had once observed in Nina"s peculiar eyes. The dress was quite old-fashioned, indicating that the picture must have been taken long ago, and while Grace gazed upon it her wonder grew as to whose it was and whence it came.
"Look at the bed," said Mrs. Johnson, and touching Grace"s elbow, she directed her attention to a side recess, hidden from view by drapery of exquisite lace, and containing a single bed, which might have been intended for an angel, so pure and white it looked with its snowy covering.
"What does it mean?" asked Grace, growing more and more bewildered, while Mrs. Johnson replied in her favorite mode of speech.
"The Lord only knows--looks as if he was going to make it a prison for some princess; but here"s the queerest thing of all," and she thumped upon a ma.s.sive door, which was locked and barred, and beyond which her prying eyes had never looked.
Over the door was a ventilator, and Grace, quite as curious as Mrs. Johnson, suggested that a chair or table be brought, upon which she, being taller than her companion, might stand and possibly obtain a view.
"What DO you see?" asked Mrs. Johnson, as Grace, on tip-toe, peered into what seemed to be a solitary cell, void of furniture of every kind, save a little cot, corresponding in size with the fairy bed in the recess, but in naught else resembling it, for its coverings were of the coa.r.s.est, strongest materials, and the pillows scanty and small.
Acting from a sudden impulse, Grace determined not to tell Mrs.
Johnson what she saw, and stepping down from the table, which she quickly rolled back to its place, she said,
"It"s nothing but a closet, where, I dare say, Mr. St. Claire will keep his clothes when he occupies his den. You must not let any one else in here, for Arthur might be offended."
Mrs. Johnson promised obedience, and turning the rusty key, followed her visitor down the two long flights of stairs, she, returning to her duties, while Grace went to the pleasant library, where, with her hat and whip upon the floor, Edith sat reading the book she had ventured to take from the well-filled shelves, and in which she had been so absorbed as not to hear the slight rustling in the adjoining room, where a young man was standing in the enclosure of the deep bay window, and gazing intently at her. He had heard from Mrs. Johnson"s daughter that some ladies were going over the house, and not caring to meet them, he stepped into the recess of the window just as Edith entered the library. As the eye of the stranger fell upon her, he came near uttering an exclamation of surprise that anything so graceful, so queenly, and withal so wondrously beautiful, should be found in Shannondale, which, with the city ideas still clinging to him, seemed like an out-of-the-way place, where the girls were buxom, good-natured and hearty, just as he remembered Kitty Maynard to have been, and not at all like this creature of rare loveliness sitting there before him, her head inclined gracefully to the volume she was reading, and showing to good advantage her magnificent hair.
"Who can she be?" he thought, and a thrill of unwonted admiration ran through his veins as Edith raised for a moment her large eyes of midnight blackness, and from his hiding-place he saw how soft and mild they were in their expression, "Can Grace have spirited to her retreat some fair nymph for company? Hark! I hear her voice, and now for the solution of the mystery."
Standing back a little further, so as to escape observation, the young man waited till Grace Atherton came near.
"Here you are," she said, "poring over a book as usual. I should suppose you"d had enough of that to do in reading to Mr.
Harrington--German Philosophy, too! Will wonders never cease?
Arthur was right, I declare, when he dubbed you Metaphysics!"
"Edith Hastings!" The young man said it beneath his breath, while he involuntarily made a motion forward.
"Can it be possible, and yet now that I know it, I see the little black-eyed elf in every feature. Well may the blind man be proud of his protege. She might grace the saloons of Versailles, and rival the Empress herself!"
Thus far he had soliloquised, when something Grace was saying caught his ear and chained his attention at once.
"Oh, Edith," she began, "you don"t know what you lost by being over squeamish. Such a perfect jewel-box of a room, with the tiniest single bed of solid mahogany! Isn"t it queer that Arthur should have locked it up, and isn"t it fortunate for us that Mrs.
Johnson found that rusty old key which must have originally belonged to the door of the Den, as she says he calls it?"
Anxiously the young man awaited Edith"s answer, his face aglow with indignation and his eyes flashing with anger.
"Fortunate for YOU, perhaps," returned Edith, tying on her riding- hat, "but I wouldn"t have gone in for anything."
"Why not?" asked Grace, walking into the hall.
"Because," said Edith, "Mr. St. Claire evidently did not wish any one to go in, and I think Mrs. Johnson was wrong in opening the door."
"What a little Puritan it is!" returned Grace, playfully caressing the rosy cheeks of Edith, who had now joined her in the hall.
"Arthur never will know, for I certainly shall not tell either him or any one, and I gave Mrs. Johnson some very wholesome advice upon that subject. There she is now in the back-yard. If you like, we"ll go round and give her a double charge."
The young man saw them as they turned the corner of the building, and gliding from his post, he hurried up the stairs and entering the Den, locked the door, and throwing himself upon the sofa, groaned aloud, while the drops of perspiration oozed out upon his forehead, and stood thickly about his lips. Then his mood changed, and pacing the floor he uttered invectives against the meddlesome Mrs. Johnson, who, by this one act, had proved that she could not be trusted. Consequently SHE must not remain longer at Gra.s.sy Spring, and while in the yard below Mrs. Johnson was promising Grace "to be as still as the dead," Arthur St. Claire was planning her dismissal. This done, and his future course decided upon, the indignant young man felt better, and began again to think of Edith Hastings, whom he admired for her honorable conduct in refusing to enter a place where she had reason to think she was not wanted.
"n.o.ble, high-principled girl," he said. "I"m glad I told Mr.
Harrington what I did before seeing her. Otherwise he might have suspected that her beauty had something to do with my offer, and so be jealous lest I had designs upon his singing-bird, as he called her. But alas, neither beauty, nor grace, nor purity can now avail with me, miserable wretch that I am," and again that piteous moan, as of a soul punished before its time, was heard in the silent room.
But hark, what sound is that, which, stealing through the iron- latticed windows, drowns the echo of that moan, and makes the young man listen? It is Edith Hastings singing one of her wild songs, and the full rich melody of her wonderful voice falls upon his ear, Arthur St. Claire bows his head upon his hands and weeps, for the music carries him back to the long ago when he had no terrible secret haunting every hour, but was as light-hearted as the maiden whom, as she gallops away on her swift-footed Arabian, he looks after, with wistful eyes, watching her until the sweep of her long riding-skirt and the waving of her graceful plumes disappear beneath the shadow of the dim woods, where night is beginning to fall. Slowly, sadly, he turns from the window-- merrily, swiftly, the riders dash along, and just us the clock strikes six, their panting steeds pause at the entrance to Collingwood.
CHAPTER X.
EDITH AT HOME.
It was too late for Grace to call, and bidding her companion good- bye, she galloped down the hill, while Edith, in a meditative mood, suffered her favorite Bedouin to walk leisurely up the carriage road which led to the rear of the house.
"Victor Dupres!" she exclaimed, as a tall figure emerged from the open door and came forward to meet her. "Where did you come from?"
"From New York," he replied, bowing very low, "Will Mademoiselle alight?" and taking the little foot from out the shoe he lifted her carefully from the saddle.
"Is HE here?" she asked, and Victor replied,
"Certainement; and has brought home a fresh recruit of the blues, too, judging from the length and color of his face."