CHAPTER XXV.THEY COME.
It was the day after the young ladies’ visit to Vine Cottage and the third week since Mrs. Rogers’ arrival in town. I had dismissed my school earlier than usual that afternoon, and at Gertie’s request, went with her to the Schuyler Cemetery. She had heard that Mr. and Mrs. Schuyler and Godfrey were expected every day, and she wanted to have that grave looking real nice, as she was sure Mr. Godfrey would be pleased to find that somebody had cared for it. So it was for Godfrey’s sake that she weeded, and dug, and trimmed, and watered, while I sat watching her, and thinking of anotheryoung girl, who, years ago, had laid her face in the grass and wept for the dead beneath it.
Where was she now? Dead, perhaps, and gone to the lover lost so early; or it might be that she was married and had forgotten that far-off grave, which she had bidden me keep till she came back again. I had neglected it of late, but my work was taken from my hands by little Gertie Westbrooke, who had made a miniature garden of the spot, and brought to light and life the flowers I had put there in the summers past and gone. There were clumps of white daisies and blue forget-me-nots, and the sweet English violet, with other hardy roots which bear our northern winters, while the rose brought from Vine Cottage yard had wound itself round the tall monument, and was reaching out its arms toward the evergreen which grew near by. There were some violets in blossom now, while, better than all, there was a clump of buds upon the rose tree, the summer’s second growth, and Gertie plucked two of them, and gathered some white daisies and blue forget-me-nots, and sitting down upon the grass she made them into a tiny bouquet, with sweet-brier for a background of green, and told me she was going to carry them home and keep them in her room.
I had shown her the little vase which Heloise Fordham left with me, and she had filled it with flowers that afternoon and brought it to the grave, where, just under the shadow of the rose, it stood a sweet offering to the memory of the dead, who, far away in the other world, knew, perhaps, whose feet were treading the sod above him, and whose the little hands so busy with his grave.
How pretty my darling was that afternoon, with the flush on her face and the sparkle in her eyes, as, with the bouquet in her hands, she walked with me back to the cottage, where I was going to help her a little in her French; and how gayly she chattered, sometimes about herself and what she meant to be, and then of the young ladies from the Hill who had called at the cottage the day before.
“I don’t think Miss Creighton very pretty,” she said, “though she looks just like the pictures in the fashion books. MissEmma is handsomer than she, but neither are half as handsome as Mrs. Schuyler.”
“I believe you think Mrs. Schuyler very pretty,” I said, and she replied:
“Pretty, I guess she is! She is beautiful,—just like a grand duchess.”
“How old is she?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. How old are you, Miss Armstrong?”
I told her almost twenty-seven, and she exclaimed:
“That is very old! I don’t think Mrs. Schuyler can be half as old as that. She looks just like a girl. Oh! oh! oh! there she is! There she is! Look, look, Miss Armstrong, they come! they come!”
We were very near Gertie’s home, and the excited child pointed toward an open barouche which had turned the corner and was just opposite the cottage. I recognized Colonel Schuyler at once, but not for an instant did my gaze rest on him; it wandered to the lady at his side, the peerless creature whose fine-cut face, framed in masses of golden-brown hair, was white and pure as a water-lily, and whose dark eyes scanned eagerly the cottage and its surroundings, and then rested upon Gertie and myself with a curious, wondering look.
“I mean to throw her this as a welcome,” Gertie cried, and the bouquet gathered from Abelard’s grave went whirling through the air, and fell directly in Edith’s lap, while Gertie snatched her bonnet from her head and shook it toward the carriage, her hair falling in rippling waves around her shoulders, and her face radiant with joy.
How the lady’s eyes gleamed, while the expression of her face and the wondrous smile which wreathed her lips and showed her white, even teeth, I never shall forget. She held the bouquet in her hand, and we heard her distinctly utter the word “thanks,” as the carriage went rapidly by. Twice she looked back, the same smile on her face and the same pleased look in her eye, as Gertie kissed the tips of her fingers and threw them toward her.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Gertie asked.
“Yes, very beautiful, I replied,” as I stood looking after her, and wondering at the opinion so different held of her at Schuyler Hill, and wondering, too, what they would think of her when they found what she was like.
Afterward I heard from one and another what they thought, and said, and did, and will narrate in