Darkness and Daylight by Mary J. Holmes (books to read to be successful TXT) 📕

“Indeed!” and Grace Atherton’s manner was very indifferent.

“Yes,” Kitty continued, “His French valet, Victor, who travelled with him in Europe, told brother Will all about it. Seven or eight years ago they were spending the summer upon the banks of the Rhine, and in a cottage near them was an American with a Swedish wife and baby. The man, it seems, was a dissipated fellow, much older than his wife, whom he neglected shamefully, leaving her alone for weeks at a time. The baby’s name was Eloise, and she was a great pet with Richard who was fond of children. At last, one day in autumn, the little Eloise, who had just learned to run alone, wandered off by herself to a bluff, or rock, or something, from which she fell into the river. The mother, Petrea, was close by, and her terrific shrieks brought Richard to the spot in time to save the child. He had not been well for several days, and the frightful cold he took induced a fever, which seemed to settle in his eyes, for ever since his sight has been failing until now it has left him entirely. But hark! isn’t some one in the next room?” and she stepped into the adjoining apartment just as the nimble Edith disappeared from view.

She had been sent up by Rachel with a message to Mrs. Atherton, and was just in time to hear the commencement of Kitty’s story. Any thing relating to the blind man was interesting to her, and so she listened, her large black eyes growing larger and blacker as the tale proceeded. It did NOT seem wholly new to her, that story of the drowning child—that cottage on the Rhine, and for a moment she heard a strain of low, rich music sung as a lullaby to some restless, wakeful child. Then the music, the cottage and the blue Rhine faded away. She could not recall them, but bound as by a spell she listened still, until the word Petrea dropped from Kitty’s lips. Then she started suddenly. Surely, she’d heard that NAME before. Whose was it? When was it? Where was it? She could not tell, and she repeated it in a whisper so loud that it attracted Kitty’s attention.

“I shall catch it if she finds me listening,” thought Edith, as she heard Kitty’s remark, and in her haste to escape she forgot all about Petrea—all about the lullaby, and remembered nothing save the noble deed of the heroic Richard. “What a noble man he must be,” she said, “to save that baby’s life, and how she would pity him if she knew it made him blind. I wonder where she is. She must be most as big as I am now;” and if it were possible Edith’s eyes grew brighter than their wont as she thought how had SHE been that Swedish child, she would go straight up to Collingwood and be the blind man’s slave. She would read to him. She would see for him, and when he walked, she would lead him so carefully, removing all the ugly pegs from his boots, and watching to see that he did not stub his toes, as she was always doing in her headlong haste. “What a great good man he is,” she kept repeating, while at the same time she felt an undefinable interest in the Swedish child, whom at that very moment, Grace Atherton was cursing in her heart as the cause of Richard’s misfortune.

Kitty was gone at last, and glad to be alone she wept passionately over this desolation of her hopes, wishing often that the baby had perished in the river ere it had wrought a work so sad. How she hated that Swedish mother and her child—how she hated all children then, even the black haired Edith, out in the autumn sunshine, singing to herself a long-forgotten strain, which had come back to her that morning, laden with perfume from the vine-clad hills of Bingen, and with music from the Rhine. Softly the full, rich melody came stealing through the open window, and Grace Atherton as she listened to the mournful cadence felt her heart growing less hard and bitter toward fate, toward the world, and toward the innocent Swedish babe. Then as she remembered that Richard kissed the flowers, a flush mounted to her brow. He did love her yet; through all the dreary years of their separation he had clung to her, and would it not atone for her former selfishness, if now that the world was dark to him, she should give herself to the task of cheering the deep darkness? It would be happiness, she thought, to be pointed out as the devoted wife of the blind man, far greater happiness to bask in the sunlight of the blind man’s love, for Grace Atherton did love him, and in the might of her love she resolved upon doing that from which she would have shrunk had he not been as helpless and afflicted as he was. Edith should be the medium between them. Edith should take him flowers every day, until he signified a wish for her to come herself, when she would go, and sitting by his side, would tell him, perhaps, how sad her life had been since that choice of hers made on the shore of the deep sea. Then, if he asked her again to share his lonely lot, she would gladly lay her head upon his bosom, and whisper back the word she should have said to him seven years ago.

It was a pleasant picture of the future which Grace Atherton drew as she lay watching the white clouds come and go over the distant tree tops of Collingwood, and listening to the song of Edith, still playing in the sunshine, and when at dinner time she failed to appear at the ringing of the bell, and Edith was sent in quest of her, she found her sleeping quietly, dreaming of the Swedish babe and Richard Harrington.

CHAPTER IV.

RICHARD AND EDITH.

On Richard’s darkened pathway, there WAS now a glimmer of daylight, shed by Edith Hastings’ visit, and with a vague hope that she might come again, he on the morrow groped his way to the summer house, and taking the seat where he sat the previous day, he waited and listened for the footstep on the grass which should tell him she was near. Nor did he wait long ere Edith came tripping down the walk, bringing the bouquet which Grace had prepared with so much care.

“Hist!” dropped involuntarily from her lips, when she descried him, sitting just where she had, without knowing why, expected she should find him, and her footfall so light that none save the blind could have detected it.

To Richard there was something half amusing, half ridiculous in the conduct of the capricious child, and for the sake of knowing what she would do, he professed to be ignorant of her presence, and leaning back against the lattice, pretended to be asleep, while Edith came so near that he could hear her low breathing as she stood still to watch him. Nothing could please her more than his present attitude, for with his large bright eyes shut she dared to look at him as much and as long she chose. He was to her now a kind of divinity, which she worshipped for the sake of the Swedish baby rescued from a watery grave, and she longed to wind her arms around his neck and tell him how she loved him for that act; but she dared not, and she contented herself with whispering softly, “If I wasn’t so spunky and ugly, I’d pray every night that God would make you see again. Poor blind man.”

It would be impossible to describe the deep pathos of Edith’s voice as she uttered the last three words. Love, admiration, compassion and pity, all were blended in the tone, and it is not strange that it touched an answering chord in the heart of the “poor blind man.” Slowly the broad chest heaved, and tears, the first he had shed since the fearful morning when they led him into the sunlight he felt but could not see, moistened his lashes, and dropped upon his face.

“He’s dreaming a bad dream,” Edith said, and with her little chubby hand she brushed his tears away, cautiously, lest she should rouse him from his slumbers.

Softly she put back from the white forehead his glossy hair, taking her own round comb to subdue an obdurate look, while he was sure that the fingers made more than one pilgrimage to the lips as the little barber found moisture necessary to her task.

“There, Mr. Blindman, you look real nice,” she said, with an immense amount of satisfaction, as she stepped back, the better to inspect the whole effect. “I’ll bet you’ll wonder who’s been here when you wake up, but I shan’t tell you now. Maybe, though, I’ll come again to-morrow,” and placing the bouquet in his hands, she ran away.

Pausing for a moment, and looking back, she saw Richard again raise to his lips her bouquet, and with a palpitating heart, as she thought, “what if he wern’t asleep after all!” she ran on until Brier Hill was reached.

“Not any message this time either?” said Grace, when told that he had kissed her flowers, and that was all.

Still this was proof that he was pleased, and the infatuated woman persisted in preparing bouquets, which Edith daily carried to Collingwood, going always at the same time, and finding him always in the same spot waiting for her. As yet no word had passed between them, for Edith, who liked the novelty of the affair, was so light-footed that she generally managed to slip the bouquet into his hand, and run away ere he had time to detain her. One morning, however, near the middle of October, when, owing to a bruised heel, she had not been to see him for more than a week, he sat in his accustomed place, half-expecting her, and still thinking how improbable it was that she would come. He had become strangely attached to the little unknown, as he termed her; he thought of her all the day long, and when, in the chilly evening, he sat before the glowing grate, listening to the monotonous whisperings of his father, he wished so much that she was there beside him. His life would not be so dreary then, for in the society of that active, playful child, he should forget, in part, how miserable he was. She was blue-eyed, and golden-haired, he thought, with soft, abundant curls veiling her sweet young face; and he pictured to himself just how she would look, flitting through the halls, and dancing upon the green sward near the door,

“But it cannot be,” he murmured on that October morning, when he sat alone in his wretchedness. “Nothing I’ve wished for most has ever come to pass. Sorrow has been my birthright from a boy. A curse is resting upon our household, and all are doomed who come within its shadow. First my own mother died just when I needed her the most, then that girlish woman whom I also called my mother; then, our darling Charlie. My father’s reason followed next, while I am hopelessly blind. Oh, sometimes I wish that I could die.”

“Hold your breath with all your might, and see if you