CHAPTER VII.ELEVEN YEARS LATER.
Dr. Barrett was dead; and as with his life the income ceased which had made Mrs. Fordham so comfortable, she was again reduced to the necessity of earning her daily bread, which she did by doing plain sewing, and lettingtwo or three rooms of the little cottage, which was all her husband had left her.
Edith was not with her. For two years or more she had been the companion of a Mrs. Sinclair, a wealthy invalid, who had advertised for some young person who was a good reader and did not object to sick people. The salary offered was not large, but as there was a prospect of permanency, Edith had answered the advertisement in person and been preferred to scores of others, who sought for the place. For six months and more Mrs. Sinclair had been abroad, but she was now in her pleasant home, a few miles from London, and on the summer morning of which I write she lay on the couch in her sitting-room, which opened upon the terrace, where, on a rustic bench beneath the shadow of a maple tree, a young girl was sitting, her white hands holding idly the book she was not reading, and her eyes looking far away, as if in quest of something never found. That was Edith, whom one would hardly recognize, so entirely changed was she in style, and manner, and general appearance. The bright color which had once been so noticeable was gone, and her complexion was clear and white, and smooth as marble, save when some sudden emotion called a faint color to her cheek. The eyes, too, were darker now, and when kindling with excitement, seemed almost black with the long curling lashes which shaded them. There was also a darker shade on the beautiful golden brown hair, which was coiled in heavy braids around her well-shaped head, and added to her apparent height. Perfect in form and face, graceful in manner, always self-possessed and ready, with the right word in the right place, Edith Lyle was a favorite wherever she went, and, during the two years she had been with Mrs. Sinclair, that lady had learned to love her as a sister, and treated her with all the consideration of a friend and equal. And Edith was very happy, save when a thought of the past came over her, and then there would steal into her eyes a look of pain, and the muscles about her mouth would contract, as if she were forcing back words she longed to utter, but dared not.
Her marriage was still a secret to every one save her mother.Even Dr. Barrett had known nothing of it until just before he died, when she told him her story, and begged him not to hate her, because it was not earlier told.
The doctor was surprised, but not angry, and, laying his hand fondly on the young girl’s head, he said:
“Poor child, you have suffered a great deal, and I pity you so much; but I am not angry,—no, no. I reckon your mother is right. She generally is. She’s a most wonderful woman for business. You’ll get on better as a girl than you would as a widow,—that is, you’ll be saved a great deal of idle, curious questioning, and make a better match by and by. With that face and that manner of yours, you ought to marry a title; as Widow Lyle you could not. Had the child lived it would be different; now it is dead, you had better let matters remain as they are. It will please your mother so, and be quite as well for you.”
This was the doctor’s advice, which lifted a heavy load from Edith’s mind. Perhaps it was better to keep silent with regard to her marriage, she thought, especially as no one could be harmed by it; and gradually, as time passed on, she came to think of the past as a horrible dream, from which she had awakened to find the horror gone and the sunlight of content, if not of happiness, still shining around her. She, however, preferred her real name, and when she went to Mrs. Sinclair it was as Edith Lyle, and when that lady on hearing her mother mentioned as Mrs. Barrett asked how that was, Edith replied:
“Mother has been married twice. Dr. Barrett was my stepfather.”
Thus Mrs. Sinclair had no suspicion of the truth, and soon learned to regard Miss Lyle as more than a mere hired companion, and was never long easy when away from her. On the day of which I write, they had returned the previous night after an absence of several months, and, attracted by the freshness of the morning and the beauty of the grounds, Edith had left Mrs. Sinclair to read the pile of letters she found awaiting her, and stolen out to her favorite seat beneath the maples, where, through an opening in the distant trees of the park, she couldcatch glimpses of the Thames and the great city with its forest of spires and domes. And as she sat there in her tasteful cambric wrapper, with only a bit of blue ribbon at her throat and in her hair, no one who saw her would have dreamed of that tragedy of by-gone years in which she had been so greatly interested, and of which she was thinking that June morning, so like that day at Schuyler Hill when the brightness of her life had so suddenly been stricken out. Should she ever go there again,—ever see that grave which Ettie had promised to keep against her coming? Yes. She would go alone some time across the sea, and lay her face upon the grass which covered her lost love, and tell him of the child that died and whose grave she never saw.
“But I will see it before I go,” she said; “I will find where they laid my little one, and it may be—”
She did not finish the sentence, for just then the silvery stroke of a bell reached her ear and she knew she was wanted within. She found Mrs. Sinclair with many letters lying open before her, and one in her hand which she had evidently just read, and which seemed to disturb her.
“I am sorry to call you when I know how fresh and bright it is out doors,” she said, as Edith came to her side, “but I find here a letter, written weeks ago, which must be answered at once. It is from my brother——”
“Your brother!” Edith repeated, in some surprise, for that was the first allusion she had ever heard Mrs. Sinclair make to any near relatives.
“Yes, my half brother Howard,” was the reply. “I’ve never spoken of him because—because,—well, there was a kind of coldness between us on account of his wife, whom I did not like. He brought her here when they were first married, and had she been a duchess she could not have borne herself more loftily than she did. I did not think her manners in good taste, and told my brother so; and as he was in the heyday of his honeymoon and saw nothing amiss in his Emily, we had a little tiff and parted coldly, and I have not seen him since. Regularly at the birth of his children he has written to me, and justbefore you came he wrote to say that Emily was dead. I answered, of course, and said I was sorry for him, and that I should be glad to see him and his children. There are three of them, and the eldest, a boy, bears my maiden and married name, Godfrey Sinclair Schuyler——”
“Schuyler!” Edith said, and if possible, her always white face was a shade paler than its wont at the sound of that name.
But Mrs. Sinclair was intent on her letter, and did not look at her as she replied:
“Yes, my brother is Howard Schuyler, and his father, who was of English descent, married my mother, Mrs. Godfrey, when I was seven years old, and took us to New York, where mother died when Howard was a baby. I stayed in New York till I was seventeen, and then came back to live with my aunt and have seen but little of Howard since.”
“And does he live in New York!” Edith asked; and Mrs. Sinclair replied:
“Yes, or rather a little way out, in the town called Hampstead, on the Hudson river. He has a beautiful place, I am told, which they call Schuyler Hill.”
“And you have news from him?” Edith said next, her heart beating rapidly at the lady’s reply.
“Yes. He is in Scotland, it seems, and wrote to know if I could receive him and his son Godfrey about this time,—let me see, the 15th of June he said, and this is the 14th. I was to answer at once, and direct to Edinburgh, where he would wait my reply. His letter was written ten days ago, and I am so much afraid he has become impatient at not hearing from me, that he will perhaps go directly to the continent without stopping here at all. My head feels so badly, would you mind writing a few lines for me, just to say that I am home, and shall be glad to see him?”
“Certainly not,” Edith answered in a voice which did not in the least betray the storm of feeling she experienced at being thus unexpectedly brought face to face as it were with a past she had almost outlived.
To stay in that room with Mrs. Sinclair while she wrote toColonel Schuyler was impossible, and asking permission to withdraw, she went to her own chamber to be alone while she penned a letter which by some one of those subtle emotions or presentiments which none can explain, she felt would influence her whole future life. She could not understand it, nor did she attempt to seek a reason for it, but she felt certain that Colonel Schuyler was the arbiter of her fate, and that with his coming would begin a new era for her, and her hand trembled so at first that she could scarcely hold the pen, and much less write a word. At last she commenced:
“Oakwood, June 14th, 18—, Colonel Schuyler,” and there she stopped, overpowered with the memories which the sight of that name evoked. Once more she stood with her lover at the garden gate, and saw the night fog creeping across the river, and heard in the distance the faint rumble of the fast coming train which had thundered by just as she gave her boy-husband the last good-by kiss, and fastened in his buttonhole the rose, which she still carefully preserved together with a silken curl cut from baby’s head during the first days of her maternity.
How every little thing connected with that curl and rose came back to her now, and for an instant she felt faint and sick again, just as she had felt when they brought the dead man in and carried him out again. In her desolation she had said: “I hate the Schuylers,” and she almost hated them now, even though she knew them innocent of any wrong to her. Col. Schuyler she remembered as a tall, fine-looking man, and she had him in her mind just as he was when he stood in the garden path and glanced wonderingly up at her as she called out the name and age and birth-place of the poor youth whose memory he wished to honor. That was the only time he had ever seen her, and she had no fear that he would recognize her now. So it was not this which made her tremble as she again took up her pen to bid him come to Oakwood, his sister’s country-seat. It was a shrinking from she did not know what, and after the letter was written and approved by Mrs. Sinclair, she felt tempted to tear it up instead of giving it to the servant whoseduty it was to post it. But this she dared not do, and the letter was sent on its way, and as soon as it was possible to receive an answer one came to Mrs. Sinclair, who read aloud at the breakfast table:
“Dear Sister Helen:—Yours of the 14th received and contents noted. Shall probably be with you the day after you get this. Godfrey will accompany me.
“Truly, your brother,Howard.”
“Truly, your brother,Howard.”
“Truly, your brother,Howard.”
“Truly, your brother,Howard.”
“That is so like Howard,” Mrs. Sinclair said. “‘Short and crisp and right to the point.’ One would almost think he had no heart, and yet I know he has, though he is very peculiar in some things, very reserved, and very proud, and a great stickler for justice and honor. Why, I do not suppose he would say or act a thing he did not mean even to save his life or that of his best friend.”
“Yes,” Edith said, idly toying with her spoon and feeling a still greater dread of this man of honor, who would not act a lie to save his life. “Yes: how old is he?”
“How old? let me see. I was past eight when he was born, and I am forty-nine; that makes him almost forty-one; quite a young man still, and fine-looking, too. I dare say he will marry again;” and, glancing across the table at the beautiful lady sitting there, a curious thought sprang into Mrs. Sinclair’s mind, which, however, had no echo in Edith’s heart.
She had asked Col. Schuyler’s age more for the sake of saying something than from any curiosity, and she hardly heard Mrs. Sinclair’s reply, so little did she care. His age or personal appearance was nothing to her. It was his presence in the house she dreaded, because it would awaken so many unpleasant memories, and take her back to a time she had almost forgotten in the pain which had come to her during the later years. But he was coming to-morrow, and at Mrs. Sinclair’s request she herself saw that his room and Godfrey’s were made ready, and then at another request from her mistress she practised her best instrumental pieces, for “Howard used to be fond of music, and was sure to like Miss Lyle’s playing.”
“Try that little Scotch ballad, please. I thought your voice stronger when you sang it to me last. Strange that it should have left you so suddenly! What was the cause of it, did you say?” Mrs. Sinclair asked.
“A sudden shock to my nerves when I was sick,” was Edith’s reply, and she felt again the iron fingers on her throat, and that choking sensation as if her heart were leaping from her mouth.
Mrs. Sinclair was very fond of music, especially of singing, and knowing this, Edith had frequently sang to her some simple ballads which were written so low as to come within the compass of her weak voice, but she could not do it now, and excusing herself, she rose from the piano saying she had a headache and needed fresh air.
“I have not seen mother since my return. She was out the day I called, and if you are willing I would like to go into town this morning; the ride will do me good.”
Mrs. Sinclair was willing, and accordingly an hour later a handsome carriage stopped before Mrs. Dr. Barrett’s gate, and Edith went slowly up the walk toward the open door.