Chapter 5

VISITORS AT COLLINGWOOD AND VISITORS AT BRIER HILL.

The morning came at last on which Arthur was expected, but as he did not appear, Grace gave him up until the morrow, and toward the middle of the afternoon ordered out her carriage, and drove slowly in the direction of Collingwood. Alighting before the broad piazza, and ascending the marble steps, she was asked by Richard's confidential servant into the parlor, where she sat waiting anxiously while he went, in quest of his master.

"A lady, sir, wishes to see you in the parlor," and Victor Dupres bowed low before Richard, awaiting his commands.

"A lady, Victor? Did she give her name?"

"Yes, sir; Atherton--Mrs. Grace Atherton, an old friend, she said," Victor replied, marveling at the expression of his master's face, which indicated anything but pleasure.

He had expected her--had rather anticipated her coming; but now that she was there, he shrank from the interview. It could only result in sorrow, for Grace was not to him now what she once had been. He could value her, perhaps, as a friend, but Edith's tale had told him that he to her was more than a friend. Possibly this knowledge was not as distasteful to him as he fancied it to be; at all events, when he remembered it, he said to Victor:

"Is the lady handsome?" feeling a glow of satisfaction in the praises heaped upon the really beautiful Grace. Ere long the hard expression left his face, and straightening up his manly form, he bade Victor take him to her.

As they crossed the threshold of the door, he struck his foot against it, and instantly there rang in his ear the words which little Edith had said to him so pityingly, "Poor blind man!" while he felt again upon his brow the touch of those childish fingers; and this was why the dark, hard look came back. Edith Hastings rose up between him and the regal creature waiting so anxiously his coming, and who, when he came and stood before her, in his helplessness, wept like a child.

"Richard! oh, Richard! that it should be thus we meet again!" was all that she could say, as, seizing the groping hand, she covered it with her tears.

Victor had disappeared, and she could thus give free vent to her emotions, feeling it almost a relief that the eyes whose glance she once had loved to meet could not witness her grief.

"Grace," he said at last, the tone of his voice was so cold that she involuntarily dropped his hands and looked him steadily in the face. "Grace, do not aggravate my misfortune by expressing too much sympathy. I am not as miserable as you may think, indeed, I am not as unhappy even now as yourself."

"It's true, Richard, true," she replied, "and because I am unhappy I have come to ask your forgiveness if ever word or action, or taunt of mine caused you a moment's pain. I have suffered much since we parted, and my suffering has atoned for all my sin."

She ceased speaking and softened by memories of the past, when he loved Grace Elmendorf, Richard reached for her hand, and holding it between his own, said to her gently, "Grace, I forgave you years ago. I know you have suffered much, and I am sorry for it, but we will understand each other now. You are the widow of the man you chose, I am hopelessly blind--our possessions adjoin each other, our homes are in sight. I want you for a neighbor, a friend, a sister, if you like. I shall never marry. That time is past. It perished with the long ago, and it will, perhaps, relieve the monotony of my life if I have a female acquaintance to visit occasionally. I thank you much for your flowers, although for a time I did not know you sent them, for the little girl would place them in my hands without a word and dart away before I could stop her. Still I knew it was a child, and I preserved them carefully for her sake until she was last here, when I learned who was the real donor. I am fond of flowers and thank you for sending them. I appreciate your kindness. I like you much better than I did an hour since, for the sound of your voice and the touch of your hands seem to me like old familiar friends. I am glad you came to see me, Grace. I wish you to come often, for I am very lonely here. We will at least be friends, but nothing more. Do you consent to my terms?"

She had no alternative but to consent, and bowing her head, she answered back, "Yes, Richard; that is all I can expect, all I wish. I had no other intention in sending you bouquets."

He knew that she did not tell him truly, but he pitied her mortification, and tried to divert her mind by talking upon indifferent subjects, but Grace was too much chagrined and disappointed to pay much heed to what he said, and after a time arose to go.

"Come again soon," he said, accompanying her to the door, "and send up that novelty Edith, will you?"

"Edith," muttered Grace, as she swept haughtily down the box-lined walk, and stepped into her carriage. "I'll send her back to the Asylum, as I live. Why didn't she tell me just how it was, and so prevent me from making myself ridiculous?"

Grace was far too much disturbed to go home at once. She should do or say something unlady-like if she did, and she bade Tom drive her round the village, thus unconsciously giving the offending Edith a longer time in which to entertain and amuse the guest at Brier Hill, for Arthur St. Claire had come.

Edith was the first to spy him sauntering slowly up the walk, and she watched him curiously as he came, mimicing his gait, and wondering if he didn't feel big.

"Nobody's afraid of you," she soliloquised, "if you do belong to the firstest family in Virginia." Then, hearing Rachel, who answered his ring, bid him walk into the parlor and amuse himself till Mrs. Atherton came, she thought, "Wouldn't it be jolly to go down and entertain him myself. Let me see, what does Mrs. Atherton say to the Shannondale gentlemen when they call? Oh, I know, she asks them if they've read the last new novel; how they liked it, and so on. I can do all that, and maybe he'll think I'm a famous scholar. I mean to wear the shawl she looks so pretty in," and going to her mistress' drawer, the child took out and threw around her shoulders a crimson scarf, which Grace often wore, and then descended to the parlor, where Arthur St. Claire stood, leaning against the marble mantel, and listlessly examining various ornaments upon it.

At the first sight of him Edith felt her courage forsaking her, there seemed so wide a gulf between herself and the haughty- looking stranger, and she was about to leave the room when he called after her, bidding her stay, and asking who she was.

"I'm Edith Hastings," she answered, dropping into a chair, and awkwardly kicking her heels against the rounds in her embarrassment at having those large, quizzical brown eyes fixed so inquiringly upon her.

He was a tall, handsome young man, not yet nineteen years of age, and in his appearance there certainly was something savoring of the air supposed to mark the F. F. V's. His manners were polished in the extreme, possessing, perhaps, a little too much hauteur, and impressing the beholder with the idea that he could, if he chose, be very cold and overbearing. His forehead, high and intellectually formed, was shaded by curls of soft brown hair, while about his mouth there lurked a mischievous smile, somewhat at variance with the proud curve of his upper lip, where an incipient mustache was starting into life. Such was Arthur St. Claire, as he stood coolly inspecting Edith Hastings, who mentally styling him the "hatefullest upstart" she ever saw, gave him back a glance as cool and curious as his own.

"You are an odd little thing," he said at last.

"No I ain't neither," returned Edith, the tears starting in her flashing black eyes.

"Spunky," was the young man's next remark, as he advanced a step or two toward her. "But don't let's quarrel, little lady. You've come down to entertain me, I dare say; and now tell me who you are."

His manner at once disarmed the impulsive Edith of all prejudice, and she replied:

"I told you I was Edith Hastings, Mrs. Atherton's waiting maid."

"Waiting maid!" and Arthur St. Claire took a step or two backwards as he said: "Why are you in here? This is not your place."

Edith sprang to her feet. She could not misunderstand the feeling with which he regarded her, and with an air of insulted dignity worthy of Grace herself, she exclaimed,

"Oh, how I hate you, Arthur St. Claire! At first I thought you might be good, like Squire Harrington; but you ain't. I can't bear you. Ugh!"

"Squire Harrington? Does he live near here?" and the face which at the sight of her anger had dimpled all over with smiles, turned white as Arthur St. Claire asked this question, to which Edith replied:

"Yes; he's blind, and he lives up at Collingwood. You can see its tower now," and she pointed across the fields.

But Arthur did not heed her, and continued to ply her with questions concerning Mr. Harrington, asking if he had formerly lived near Geneva, in western New York, if he had a crazy father, and if he ever came to Brier Hill.

Edith's negative answer to this last query seemed to satisfy him, and when, mistaking his eagerness for a desire to see her divinity, Edith patronizingly informed him that he might go with her some time to Collingwood, he answered her evasively, asking if Richard recognized voices, as most blind people did.

Edith could not tell, but she presumed he did, for he was the smartest man that ever lived; and in her enthusiastic praises she waxed so eloquent, using, withal, so good language, that Arthur forgot she was a waiting maid, and insensibly began to entertain a feeling of respect for the sprightly child, whose dark face sparkled and flashed with her excitement. She WAS a curious specimen, he acknowledged, and he began adroitly to sound the depths of her intellect. Edith took the cue at once, and not wishing to be in the background, asked him, as she had at first intended doing, if he'd read the last new novel.

Without in the least comprehending WHAT novel she meant, Arthur promptly replied that he had.

"How did you like it?" she continued, adjusting her crimson scarf as she had seen Mrs. Atherton do under similar circumstances.

"Very much indeed," returned the young man with imperturbable gravity, but when with a toss of her head she asked; "Didn't you think there was too much 'PHYSICS in it?" he went off into peals of laughter so loud and long that they brought old Rachel to the door to see if "he was done gone crazy or what."

Taking advantage of her presence, the crest-fallen Edith crept disconsolately up the stairs, feeling that she had made a most ridiculous mistake, and wondering what the word COULD be that sounded so much like 'PHYSICS, and yet wasn't that at all. She know she had made herself ridiculous, and was indulging in a fit of crying when Mrs. Atherton returned, delighted to meet her young cousin, in whom she felt a pardonable pride.

"You must have been very lonely," she said, beginning to apologize for her absence.

"Never was less so in my life," he replied. "Why, I've been splendidly entertained by a little black princess, who called herself your waiting maid, and discoursed most eloquently of METAPHYSICS and all that."

"Edith, of course," said Grace. "It's just, like her. Imitated me in every thing, I dare say."

"Rather excelled you, I think, in putting on the fine lady," returned the teasing Arthur, who saw at once that Edith Hastings was his fair cousin's sensitive point.

"What else did she say?" asked Grace, but Arthur generously refrained from repeating the particulars of his interview with the little girl who, as the days went by, interested him so much that he forgot his Virginia pride, and greatly to Mrs. Atherton's surprise, indulged with her in more than one playful romp, teasingly calling her his little "Metaphysics," and asking if she hated him still.

She did not. Next to Richard and Marie, she liked him better than any one she had ever seen, and she was enjoying his society so much when a most unlucky occurrence suddenly brought her happiness to an end, and afforded Grace an excuse for doing what she had latterly frequently desired to do, viz. that of sending the little girl back to the Asylum from which she had taken her.

Owing to the indisposition of the chambermaid, Edith was one day sent with water to Mr. St. Claire's room. Arthur was absent, but on the table his writing desk lay open, and Edith's inquisitive eyes were not long in spying a handsome golden locket, left there evidently by mistake. Two or three times she had detected him looking at this picture, and with an eager curiosity to see it also, she took the locket in her hand, and going to the window, touched the spring.

It was a wondrously beautiful face which met her view--the face of a young girl, whose golden curls rippling softly over her white shoulders, and whose eyes of lustrous blue, reminded Edith of the angels about which Rachel sang so devoutly every Sunday. To Edith there was about that face a nameless but mighty fascination, a something which made her warm blood chill and tingle in her veins, while there crept over her a second time dim visions of something far back in the past--of purple fruit on vine-clad hills--of music soft and low--of days and nights on some tossing, moving object-- and then of a huge white building, embowered in tall green trees, whose milk-white blossoms she gathered in her hand; while distinct from all the rest was this face, on which she gazed so earnestly. It is true that all these thoughts were not clear to her mind; it was rather a confused mixture of ideas, one of which faded ere another came, so that there seemed no real connection between them; and had she embodied them in words, they would have been recognized as the idle fancies of a strange, old-fashioned child. But the picture--there WAS something in it which held Edith motionless, while her tongue seemed struggling to articulate a NAME, but failed in the attempt; and when, at last, her lips did move, they uttered the word MARIE, as if she too, were associated with that sweet young face.

"Oh, but she's jolly," Edith said, "I don't wonder Mr. Arthur loves her," and she felt her own heart throb with a strange affection for the beautiful original of that daguerreotype.

In the hall without there was the sound of a footstep. It was coming to that room. It was Grace herself, Edith thought; and knowing she would be censured for touching what did not belong to her, she thrust the locket into her bosom, intending to return it as soon as possible, and springing out upon the piazza, scampered away, leaving the water pail to betray her recent presence.

It was NOT Grace, as she had supposed, but Arthur St. Claire himself come to put away the locket, which he suddenly remembered to have left upon the table. Great was his consternation when he found it gone, and that no amount of searching could bring it to light. He did not notice the empty pail the luckless Edith had left, although he stumbled over it twice in his feverish anxiety to find his treasure. But what he failed to observe was discovered by Grace, whom he summoned to his aid, and who exclaimed:

"Edith Hastings has been here! She must be the thief!"

"Edith, Grace, Edith--it cannot be," and Arthur's face indicated plainly the pain it would occasion him to find that it was so.

"I hope you may be right, Arthur, but I have not so much confidence in her as you seem to have. There she is now," continued Grace, spying her across the yard and calling to her to come.

Blushing, stammering, and cowering like a guilty thing, Edith entered the room, for she heard Arthur's voice and knew that he was there to witness her humiliation.

"Edith," said Mrs. Atherton, sternly, "what have you been doing?"

No answer from Edith save an increase of color upon her face, and with her suspicions confirmed, Grace went on,

"What have you in your pocket?"

"'Taint in my pocket; it's in my bosom," answered Edith, drawing it forth and holding it to view.

"How dare you steal it," asked Grace, and instantly there came into Edith's eyes the same fiery, savage gleam from which Mrs. Atherton always shrank, and beneath which she now involuntarily quailed.

It had never occurred to Edith that she could be accused of theft, and she stamped at first like a little fury, then throwing herself upon the sofa, sobbed out, "Oh, dear--oh, dear, I wish God would let me die. I don't want to live any longer in such a mean, nasty world. I want to go to Heaven, where everything is jolly."

"You are a fit subject for Heaven," said Mrs. Atherton, scornfully, and instantly the passionate sobbing ceased; the tears were dried in the eyes which blazed with insulted dignity as Edith arose, and looking her mistress steadily in the face, replied,

"I suppose you think I meant to steal and keep the pretty picture, but the one who was in here with me knows I didn't."

"Who was that?" interrupted Grace, her color changing visibly at the child's reverent reply.

"God was with me, and I wish he hadn't let me touch it, but he