A Terrible Secret Part 68

"Darling," he said, "how pale you are--white as a spirit. Go out for a little into the air--don't mind leaving me. I feel sleepy again."

She kissed him and went. All her after life she was glad to remember their last parting had been with a caress on her part, a happy smile on his. She descended the steps leading from the window with unquestioning obedience, and pa.s.sed out into the rose and gold light of the sunset. She remained perhaps fifteen minutes--certainly not more. The red light of the October sky was fast paling to cold gray--the white October moon was rising. She went back. He still lay as she had left him--his eyes were closed--she thought he was asleep.

She bent over him, close--closer--growing white almost as himself.

And then she knew what it was.

"And there shall be no more death; neither sorrow nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain."

A cry rang through the room, the long, wailing cry of widowhood. She fell on her knees by the bed. An hour after, the pa.s.sing bell tolled sombrely through the darkness from the steeple of Chesholm Church, telling all whom it might concern that Sir Victor Catheron had gone home.

CHAPTER VII.

TWO YEARS AFTER.

One brilliant, August noonday a Cunard s.h.i.+p steamed gallantly down the Mersey and out into the open sea.

There were a great number of pa.s.sengers on board--every cabin, every berth, was filled. Every country under Heaven, it seemed, was represented. After the first two or three days out, after the first three or four times a.s.sembling around the dinner-table and congregating on the sunny decks, people began to know all about one another, to learn each other's names and histories.

There was one lady pa.s.senger who from the first excited a great deal of talk and curiosity. A darkly handsome young lady in widow's weeds, who rather held herself aloof from everybody, and who seemed all sufficient unto herself. A young lady, pitifully young to wear that sombre dress and widow's cap, remarkable anywhere for her beauty, and dignity, and grace. Who was she? as with one voice all the gentlemen on board cried out that question the moment they saw her first.

She was a lady of rank and t.i.tle, an English lady, travelling with her two servants--otherwise quite alone--the name on the pa.s.senger list was Lady Catheron.

For the first two days that was all that could be ascertained--just enough to whet curiosity to burning-point. Then in the solitude and seclusion of the ladies' cabin the maid servant became confidential with one of the stewardesses, and narrated, after the manner of maids, her mistress's history as far as she knew it. The stewardess retailed it to the lady pa.s.sengers, and the lady pa.s.sengers gave it at third hand to the gentlemen. This is what it was:

Lady Catheron, young as she looked and was, had nevertheless been a widow for two years. Her husband had been Sir Victor Catheron, of Ches.h.i.+re, who had died after the first year of married felicity, leaving an immensely rich widow. Miserable Sir Victor! thought all the gentlemen. She--Sarah Betts, the maid--had not known her ladys.h.i.+p during the year of her married life, she had been engaged in London, some months after my lady's bereavement, to travel with her on the continent. My lady had travelled in company with her aunt, the Lady Helena Powyss, and her cousin, a "Mrs. Victor." They had spent the best part of two years wandering leisurely through every country in Europe, and now my lady was finis.h.i.+ng her tour of the world by coming to America--why, Betts did not know. Not many ladies of rank came to America alone, Betts thought, but she had heard my lady was American by birth. Everywhere my lady went she had been greatly admired--gentlemen always raved about her, but she seemed as cold as marble, very high and haughty, utterly indifferent to them all.

She did not go into society--she had been awfully fond of her late husband, and quite broken-hearted at losing him so soon. That was Miss Betts' story, and like Sam Weller's immortal valentine, was just enough to make them wish there was more.

For the man servant and _avant courier_ of my lady, he was a genteel, dignified, taciturn gentleman, like an elderly duke in difficulties, with whom it was impossible to take liberties or ask questions--a sort of human oyster: who kept himself and his knowledge hermetically sealed up. He told nothing, and they had to be contented with Betts'

version.

So Lady Catheron became _the_ lady of interest on board. Everybody saw her on deck, her railway rug spread in the suns.h.i.+ne, her low wicker-work chair placed upon it, a large umbrella unfurled over her head, reading or gazing over the sea toward the land they were nearing. She made no acquaintances, she was perfectly civil to everybody who spoke to her, friendly to a degree with the children, and her smile was bright and sweet as the suns.h.i.+ne itself. Her reticence could hardly be set down to pride. Before the voyage was over she was many times forward among the steerage pa.s.sengers, leaving largesses behind her, and always followed by thanks and blessings when she came away. Not pride, surely--the great dark fathomless eyes were wondrously sweet and soft; the lips, that might once have been haughty and hard, tender and gentle now, and yet there was a vague, intangible something about her, that held all at arm's length, that let no one come one inch nearer than it was her will they should come.

Lady Catheron had been their interest from the first--she was their mystery to the end.

Yes, it was Edith--Edith going home--home! well hardly that, perhaps; she was going to see her father, at his urgent request. He had returned once more to Sandypoint, he had been ailing lately, and he yearned to see his darling. His letter reached her in Paris, and Edith crossed over at once, and came.

Was there in her heart any hope of seeing, as well, other friends?

Hardly--and yet, as America drew near and nearer, her heart beat with a hope and a restlessness she could no more explain than I can. In Naples, six months ago, she had met a party of Americans, and among them Mrs. Featherbrain, of light-headed memory. Mrs. Featherbrain had recognized an old acquaintance in Lady Catheron, and hailed her with effusion.

For Edith, she shrank away with the old feeling of dislike and repulsion, and yet she listened to her chatter, too.

"How sad it was," said gay Mrs. Featherbrain, "about the poor, dear Stuarts. That delightful Charley, too! ah! it was very sad. Did Lady Catheron correspond with them? But of course she did, being a relative and everything."

"No," Edith answered, her pale face a shade paler than usual; "she had entirely lost sight of them lately. She would be very glad to hear of them, though. Did Mrs. Featherbrain know--"

"Oh, dear, no!" Mrs. Featherbrain answered; "I have lost sight of them too--every one has. When people become poor and drop out of the world, as it were, it is impossible to follow them up. She _had_ heard, just before their party started, that Trixy was about to be married, and that Charley--poor Charley! was going to California to seek his fortune. But she knew nothing positively, only that they were certainly not to be seen in New York--that the places and people who had known them once, knew them no more." That was all.

It could not be, then, that the hope of meeting them was in Edith's mind, and yet, her whole soul yearned to meet them--to ask their forgiveness, if no more. To clasp Trixy's hand once again,--honest, loving, impulsive, warm-hearted Trixy,--to feel her arms about her as of old, it seemed to Edith Catheron, she could have given half her life. Of any other, she would not let herself think. He had pa.s.sed out of her life forever and ever--nothing could alter that.

"Everywhere she went, she was admired," her servants had said, "but to all she was cold as marble." Yes, and it would always be so while life remained. There had been but one man in all the world for her from the first--she had given him up of her own free will; she must abide by her decision; but there never would be any other. One loveless marriage she had made; she never would make another. Charley Stuart might--would, beyond doubt--forget her and marry, but she would go to her grave, her whole heart his.

They reached New York; and there were many kindly partings and cordial farewells. Lady Catheron and her two servants drove away to an up-town hotel, where rooms had been engaged, and all the papers duly chronicled the distinguished arrival. One day to rest--then down to Sandypoint, leaving gossiping Betts and the silent elderly gentleman behind her.

And in the twilight of an August day she entered Sandypoint, and walked slowly through the little town, home. Only three years since she had left, a happy, hopeful girl of eighteen--returning now a saddened; lonely woman of twenty-one. How strangely altered the old landmarks, and yet how familiar. Here were the stores to which she used to walk, sulky and discontented, through the rain, to do the family marketing. Here spread the wide sea, smiling and placid, whereon she and Charley used to sail. Yonder lay the marsh where, that winter night, she had saved his life. Would it have been as well, she thought with weary wonder, if they had both died that night? Here was the nook where he had come upon her that wet, dark morning with his mother's letter, when her life seemed to begin--here the gate where they had stood when he gave her his warning: "Whatever that future brings, Edith, don't blame me." No, she blamed n.o.body but herself; the happiness of her life had lain within her grasp, and she had stretched forth her hand and pushed it away. There was the open window where he used to sit, in the days of his convalesence, and amuse himself setting her inflammable temper alight. It was all a.s.sociated with him. Then the house door opens, a tall, elderly man comes out, there is a great cry,--father and daughter meet, and for an hour or so, she can forget even Charley.

She remains a week--how oddly familiar and yet strange it all seems.

The children noisier and ruder than ever, her father grown grayer and more wrinkled, her stepmother, shrill of tongue and acid of temper as of yore, but fawningly obsequious to her.

The people who used to know her, and who flock to see her, the young men who used to be in love with her, and who stare at her speechlessly and afar off now. It amuses her for a while, then she tires of it, she tires of everything of late, her old fever of restlessness comes back. This dull Sandypoint, with its inquisitive gapers and questioners, is not to be endured, even for her father's sake. She will return to New York.

In the bustling life there--the restless, ceaseless flow of humanity, she alone finds solitude and rest now. She goes, but she leaves behind her that which renders keeping boarders or teaching cla.s.sics forever unnecessary to Frederick Darrell.

She goes back. What her plans are for the future she does not know.

She has no plans, she cannot tell how long she may remain, or where she will eventually take up her abode. It seems to her she will be a sort of feminine Wandering Jew all her life. That life lacks something that renders her restless--she does not care to think what.

She may stay all winter--she may pack up and start any day for England.

September pa.s.ses, and she has not gone. A few of the acquaintances she made when here before with the Stuarts call upon her, but they can tell her nothing of them. If the Stuarts were all dead and buried they could not more completely have dropped out of the lives of their summer-time friends. It must be true, she thinks, what Mrs. Featherbrain told her. Trixy is married and settled somewhere with her mother, and Charley is thousands of miles away, "seeking his fortune."

Then, all at once, she resolves to go back to England. Her handsome jointure house awaits her, Lady Helena and Inez long for her, love her--she will go back to them--try to be at peace like other women, try to live her life out and forget. She has some purchases to make before she departs. She goes into a Broadway store one day, advances to a counter, and says:

"I wish to see some black Lyons velvet." Then she pauses, and looks at some black kid gloves lying before her.

"What is the number?" she asks, lifting a pair.

The young man behind the counter makes no reply.

She raises her eyes to his face for the first time, and sees--Charley Stuart!

CHAPTER VIII.

FORGIVEN OR--FORGOTTEN?

Charley Stuart! The original of the pictured face that lies over her heart by night and day. Charley--unchanged, calm, handsome, eminently self-possessed as ever, looking at her with grave gray eyes.

She turns giddy, with the utter shock of the great surprise--she leans for a second heavily against the counter, and looks at him with eyes that cannot believe what they see.

"Charley!"

"Edith!"

Yes, it is his voice, his smile, and he stretches his hand across the counter and takes hers. Then she sinks into a seat, and for a moment the store, and the faces, swim about her in a hot mist. But her heart has given one great glad leap, and she knows she has found what all unconsciously she has been longing for, seeking for--Charley!

He is the first to recover himself--if indeed he has lost himself for an instant--and speaks: