CHAPTER LIV.HUSBAND AND WIFE.
He found his wife asleep, with her cheek resting on one hand, her hair pushed back and lying in masses upon the pillow. He had seen her thus many times, and he paused to look at her now, and thought how fair and lovely she was even yet, with her thirty-four years and the marks of her dangerous illness. Hers was a face which does not grow old, and to him it seemed more beautiful than it had been on her bridal day, because he loved her more than he did then, and knew how sweet she was. He did not associate her in the least with Abelard Lyle when he was with her. It was some other Edith who had been the heroine of that strange romance,—it was Heloise Fordham, the girl at the cottage, who had shed such bitter tears for the young carpenter, and not his wife, lying there before him in that quiet sleep. She was Edith,—the mother of his little boy, and he stooped at last and kissed her just as tenderly as if that letter had never been read by him, and he had never heard of the Lyles who lived in Alnwick.
The kiss roused her a little, and turning upon her pillow, her lips moved, and he heard her say, “Abelard,” while a pang, keener, sharper, and different from anything he had known, shot through his heart and brought great drops of sweat to his brow and lips.
During the dreadful three days when he was “thinking it out” he had experienced no jealousy of the dead youth, or for an instant believed that Edith loved him still, or could have loved him had he lived till now and met her for the first time in the fulness of her womanhood. But she was dreaming of him sure, and Colonel Schuyler would have given much to know the nature of the dream.
She was sleeping again, and he drew a chair beside her, and with his eyes fastened upon her face, sat looking at her until he heard Gertie light the gas in the adjoining room, preparatory toputting Arthur to bed. This was something the child would allow no one else to do, and now, when this was done, he insisted upon “tissin’ mamma just once” before going to his crib.
“Yes, Gertie, let him come,” the colonel said, as he heard the clamor at the door, and in his long night-gown the boy came in, screaming with joy at sight of his father, and crying out, as he reached out his arms to touch his mother’s face:
“Oh, mamma! mamma! papa’s tome! I’se so glad!—is you?”
Edith was awake now, and started when she saw the dark figure and guessed whose it was.
“Papa’s tome!” Arthur said again, while Gertie, feeling sure that Mrs. Schuyler would be disturbed, carried him forcibly away, and left the husband and wife alone.
Then Colonel Schuyler arose, and bending over his wife, said softly:
“Edith, darling, I have come home. Are you glad to see me?” He did not wait for her to answer, but continued: “They tell me you are better, and I am so rejoiced. Kiss me, can you?”
She kissed him as he desired, and he felt her hot tears on his cheek as he held his face to her. She was much better than when he left her. Reason had come back again, and she could think of all that was past, and what lay before her, and she shrank from it, and from her husband, who must soon know everything, and who might turn from her in bitter scorn and disgust. Oh, how she loved him now! and how her poor heart ached when she thought of losing his respect and seeing his love for her turning into hatred. For he did love her; she was sure of that, and never had his manner been so full of manly tenderness as it was when he came to her after an absence of three days and asked her if she was glad. It seemed almost, she thought, as if he were pitying her, and he was, and wishing he could help her tell him what he was certain she wanted to. But it must not be that night; she was too weak to bear the excitement. He must wait till she was stronger, he thought, and when at last, ashe supported her in his arms and stroked her face caressingly, she said to him:
“Now, Howard, please lay me down, and do not come again till I send for you;” he went away, but did not stay till she sent for him, lest it should be too long. Every day he went to see her, and tried to seem natural, and once, when she asked why he looked so thin and haggard, he answered evasively and said he had a cold, and then went straight to the cemetery, and, standing at Abelard’s grave, read the inscription aloud:
“James A. Lyle. Born in Alnwick, England. Died June 18th, 18—. Aged 23.”
Then he examined the stone and tried if it were firm in its place, and kicked the snow and dead leaves from a tuft of daisies, which looked so fresh and green that he stooped to examine it, and found to his surprise a tiny white blossom hidden under the snow and the pile of leaves and straw which Gertie had put there in the fall to protect the plants.
“Daisies under the snow onhisgrave. It is very remarkable,” he said, as he picked the little flower, and going back to the house he put it in some water, and set it on the table in his room, where he watched it all day long until it grew to be almost a phantom and he felt he could endure it no longer.
He must speak to Edith or go mad himself. She was much better now, and he would watch with her that night, and have it out when there was no fear of interruption. But he did not tell her of his intention lest she should oppose it, and she supposed her attendant was to be Gertie, who frequently slept in the room with her.
Edith’s habit was to sleep from nine to twelve, but this night it was nearly one when she awoke and looked about her. The gas was turned down and the bright winter moonlight came through the window and fell in a sheet upon the floor, making the room almost as light as day, and showing plainly the figure sitting so motionless in the chair at the foot of the bed. It was not Gertie, and Edith’s heart beat quickly when she saw it was her husband, and thought:
“I must tell him,—I am able to bear it now.”
He knew she was awake, but waited for her to speak, trembling in every joint as he wondered how he should begin to say that which he was there to say, and wondering, too, how she would receive it. He had the little daisy on the table near him, and when she stirred he took it in his hand and fancied that it had grown to be the size of the magnolia blossoms he saw once in the gardens at the South. His mind was surely getting disordered, when Edith spoke and said:
“Howard, is that you? Are you watching with me?”
“Yes, Edith;” and he drew his chair closer to her, while she went on:
“Howard, do you love me, really, truly love me?”
“Yes,” he answered, “I really, truly love you. Why do you ask me, Edith?”
“Because, Howard, because I,—I,—wanted to be sure. I’ve,—there is something I must; oh, Howard, you do,—love me,—you do.”
It was a piteous cry, and had she been convicted of murder Colonel Schuyler would have stood by her with that sound in his ears. She was going to tell him, instead of his telling her! He was sure of it, and in his anxiety to know how she would begin, he resolved not to help her at first, but hear what she had to say. For a moment she lay very still, with her hands locked tightly together, and he knew that she was praying, for he caught the words “Help me,” as they came from her white lips. And heaven did help her, and the iron fingers were held back and her respiration was unimpeded, save by strong emotion when she at last began:
“Howard, do you remember the day when we were married, and I fainted in my dressing-room before going to the train?”
It was coming now, sure, and he replied:
“Yes, Edith, I remember it; your mother said it was in some way connected with thataffaire du cœur.”
“Yes, Howard, it was. Hold my hand, please, and hold it tight; till you feel your love for me going away.”
He took her hand and held it fast, while she continued:
“And do you remember the little inn, and the pleasant night,and the perfume of the flowers in the yard and the fresh hay on the lawn, and you sitting on the balcony when I came to tell you something, which you refused to hear?”
“Yes, Edith, I remember it. Does one forget his wedding day so easily that I should forget that,” he said; and Edith went on:
“You asked me to call you Howard, and I said, wait till I have told you what might make a difference, but you would not listen. You were satisfied, you said, and if there was anything more you did not wish to hear it, and you promised that whatever came in the future you would have faith in me and believe I meant to do right. Howard, therewassomething more, a terrible something, and I must tell it to you now, but draw the curtain, please; shut out the moonlight and turn off the gas. I’d rather be in the dark, and not see your face, when your love begins to turn to hate.”
It would be cruel to let her go further. He had heard enough to satisfy him that a full confession was to be made, and without dropping the curtain or turning the gas lower he leaned over her, and said:
“One question, Edith, please; do you love me now better than you did on our wedding day? Is there no regret in your heart for that early lover? Tell me truly, Edith.”
“No, not the way you mean. Regret there is, it is true, but not that way. The love I had for him has been overshadowed by a later and mightier love; and, I can truly say, few wives have ever loved their husbands as I love you, and that makes it so hard to tell you now when I want your love so much. Oh, Howard, just once, for the sake of all the happiness we have had together, kiss me and hold me in your arms as you used to do. You’ll never hold me so again, but this once do not refuse.”
He wound his arms around her and pressed her closely to him, and kissed her brow and lips, and she felt his tears upon her face when at last he released her and put her gently back upon the pillow.
“Thank you, Howard. I’ll never ask you again,” she said,for she believed it their farewell; but he knew it was not, and when she was recovered a little he summoned all his energies, and said:
“Edith, you seem to be afraid that what you have to tell me will make me love you less. I promise you that it shall not, and in token of that promise I have brought you this daisy which I found blossoming under the snow on Abelard’s grave, as if it were a message from him to mediate between us.”
He spoke slowly and held up the little white blossom before the eyes which looked at it and him so wonderingly.
“What do you mean?” Edith asked, faintly, and he replied:
“I mean that you have no need to tell the story, for I know it all!”
There was a sudden gasping for breath, a throwing back of the bed-clothes as if their weight oppressed her, and then Edith asked:
“What do you know?”
“I know that you were once Heloise Fordham, and lived in the cottage by the bridge, and were the wife of Abelard Lyle, and had a little daughter born in London, whom your mother carried away when you were insensible, and that you wrote all this in a letter to me before we were married, and supposed I got that letter until our wedding day, when you learned how we had both been deceived, and you tried so hard to tell me. You see Idoknow it all,” he continued. “I accidentally found your letter in the pocket where you put it with Arthur’s whistle. It was directed to me and I read it, and in my first surprise and bewilderment went away to be alone and think it out. I did think it out, and exonerated you entirely, and have come back to tell you so and assure you of my continued love and respect. Poor darling, how much you must have suffered, but it is all over now. Your secret is known to me, and that is all that is necessary. It shall die——”
He stopped short, struck by the look of pain and anguish on Edith’s face, and the low moan which escaped her as she drew herself away from him to the far side of the bed. He did notknow then that her child still lived; he could not, for it was not thus written in her letter, and throwing up her hands, she cried:
“Oh, Howard, Howard, you do not know the whole, neither did I till mother came and told me. She went to the hospital after baby, as I said in my letter, and when she came back she told me baby was dead, and I believed her, nor ever had another thought until the night I was with her and you found me fainting at her feet. She could not die with that lie on her soul, and she told me the truth at last. Baby was not dead. She was adopted,—taken by some poor woman who lived in Dorset Street,—the number is in that letter or on the envelope somewhere, and the name Stover. Howard, my daughter is alive, and now you know the whole.”
He did not speak, though he shivered from head to foot as there came over him a dim foreshadowing of what Edith meant to do and what he must not prevent her doing. He saw the right as clearly as she did, and knew that were he in her place he should do the same; but the flesh was very weak, and he staggered, and grew faint and sick as he thought of letting the whole world know who his Edith was, and how he had been deceived. If the child was found and acknowledged all this must be, unless indeed they both might think it best to keep it still a secret. They could care for the girl just the same, adopt her, perhaps, and never let her nor any one know just what she was to them. Edith certainly would concede so much to his feelings. She would not thrust this great humiliation upon him in the face of all the world. And if they never found the girl,—but he dared not allow himself to consider that possibility for a moment. Something told him they would find her, and he caught himself wondering how she looked, if she was at all like her mother; or had she lived so long with the people in Dorset Street that every vestige of grace and beauty and refinement had been destroyed, and she was like her aunt, Jenny Nesbit, in far-off Alnwick, with her bare arms and dreadful slang. How he dreaded her, and how his heart beat with shame at the thought of bringing her there as an associate for his wife andGertie! Oh, if she could prove to be like Gertie, he thought; but she would not, and never in all his life had he shrunk from a living thing as he shrunk from that unknown step-daughter of whose existence he had never dreamed until within the last few minutes.
“Howard!” Edith said at last, but he did not answer. “Howard,” she said again, “now that you know the whole you will love me still?”
“Yes, Edith,” he said; and she continued, “And you will help me find her just as soon as I am able to cross the sea. Will it be in a week, do you think, or two? I am a great deal better than I was yesterday, and now that you know it I shall get well so fast. Do you think we can start in a week?”
“No, Edith, I know you cannot. A sea voyage in the winter is always rough, and you could not bear it yet,” was his reply, and Edith assented, and thought how hard she would try to get well so as to go on that strange errand of hunting up a child lost almost nineteen years.
Anon there crept into her mind a suspicion of what it would be to her husband to have the story known, and she said to him pityingly:
“Howard, I am sorry for you. It will be so hard for you to have the people know.”
“Yes, Edith, very hard at first; but you surely need not say anything until you know whether you find her,” the colonel replied, and Edith acquiesced, and longed for the time when she should be able to endure the excitement and fatigue of the voyage and the search, and the finding-perhaps of the object sought.
She was very tired and did not talk any more that night, but fell into a quiet sleep, while her husband sat by her, feeling as if he would never sleep again, or know a moment’s gladness. How old and tired and worn he looked the next day, and how he stooped in walking, as if the burden were greater than he could bear. Sometimes he thought it was, and once the tempter whispered that the cold river just in sight from his window would be a better place than his beautiful home after all wasknown. But Col. Schuyler was too brave a man to die a suicidal death in order to escape a trouble. “Better live and face it,” he thought, and then began to feel a restless impatience to have the matter settled, to know the worst as soon as possible, and he was almost as glad as Edith when she was pronounced able to undertake the voyage. Why they were going to England in the winter they did not say, and we naturally supposed it might be to benefit Edith and pay a visit to Glenthorpe, where Emma was so happy. Norah was not going; Edith could get a maid across the water, she said, and she preferred leaving Norah to look after little Arthur. To Gertie, however, the principal care of the child was given, and she promised to be faithful to her trust, and care for the little boy as if he were her brother.
And so one day in January, when the Oceanic sailed out of the harbor of New York, Edith was in the ship going blindfolded to seek the very blessing which, all unknown, she left behind.