CHAPTER XI
THE BUNCH OF HOLLY
“Silence is the perfect herald of joy;
I were but little happy it I could say how much.”
Words were never more applicable than these to those undeclared lovers, sitting in such a mute happiness side by side, in the little reception room, on that bright morning so near Christmastide.
Editha was the first to break the spell.
“I have not told you Uncle Richard’s message yet,” she said, and an expression of anxiety for the moment chased the radiant look from her face.
“True—it was like his kindness to remember me,” Earle returned, a shadow stealing over his fine face.
“He thought a great deal of you, and had great hopes for your future—”
“Which, if it amounts to anything, will be in a great measure owing to his goodness,” he interrupted, with emotion.
“Yes, Uncle Richard was a true, good man; but, Earle, now I have something unpleasant to tell you. I—he left you a token of his remembrance.”
She hesitated, and he said, with a smile:
“I’m sure there is nothing unpleasant about that.”
“No; but wait,” she began, in some confusion and hardly knowing how to go on with her disagreeable task; “he left you a little money, ten thousand dollars, to give you a start in life, he said.”
Earle Wayne startled and flushed deeply.
“Did Mr. Forrester do that?” he asked, greatly moved.
“Yes; and now comes the disagreeable part of it all. I do not like to tell you, but I must,” she said, lifting her crimson, troubled face to him, and he wondered what there was about it that should make her appear so. “Papa did not like it very well,” she went on, dropping her eyes with a feeling of shame. “He thought that it was not right the money should go to a stranger, and—and—oh! Earle, I know it seems selfish and cruel, but he says you cannot have it.”
Editha nearly broke down here; it had required all her courage to tell him this; and now she sat still, covered with shame and confusion. A shade of bitterness passed over the young man’s face at her last words, and then the least smile of scorn curled his fine lips.
He had never experienced very much respect for Sumner Dalton; he knew him to be a man devoid of principle, of small mind, and smaller soul; but he was Editha’s father, and he could speak no word against him. He saw how ashamed and uncomfortable she felt to be obliged to make this humiliating confession regarding her only parent, while he admired the fine sense of honor that would not allow her to shrink from her duty in telling him.
“I am going to tell you just how the matter stands,” she resumed presently: “and then you must excuse Papa as best you can. You doubtless have heard that Uncle Richard was paralyzed—he had no use of either his hands or his feet and was entirely helpless, although his mind was clear until just before his second shock, which came suddenly in the night. He told me the day before that he knew he could not live, and gave me directions just what to do. He said if he could only use his hands, he would have added a codicil to his will in your favor, but as it was, I must attend to his wishes. He said it—the will—had been made many years ago, giving everything to me; but ever since he became interested in you he had intended doing something handsome for you; if he had lived and you wished it, he would have wanted you to go back to him as a partner in his business, as soon as you should be free to do so. But he charged me—made me promise—to make over to you ten thousand dollars as soon as your time expired.
“He left a large fortune, more than I shall ever know what to do with, and I was so glad of this bequest to you,” Editha went on, heartily. “I asked Mr. Felton to see that everything was done properly so that you could have the money at once. He did so, and I wanted you to have it as a sort of Christmas gift; but, Earle, I am not twenty-one yet; Papa is still my natural guardian.”
“Well?” Earle said, encouragingly, as she stopped in distress, and he pitied her for having to make this confession to him, while a tender smile wreathed his lips at her truthfulness and her sorrow on his account.
“So there is no way—you will have to wait a little while for your money. I shall be twenty-one the twentieth of next November, and my own mistress; and, Earle, you shall have it then, with the year’s interest added.”
He nearly laughed to see how eager she was for him to have exactly his due; then he grew suddenly grave, and said, gently but firmly:
“No, Editha, I do not wish, I cannot take one dollar of this money.”
“But it was Uncle Richard’s dying wish and bequest to you—it belongs to you by right,” she pleaded, bitterly disappointed by his refusal to take it.
“No, by your uncle’s will, which he did not in any way change, it all belongs to you.”
“But he would have changed the will if he could have held a pen; he said so; and the money is not mine,” she cried, almost in tears.
“The law would judge differently—your father is right. It should not come to me”—this was said with a touch of bitterness, however—“and I will not have one dollar of it.”
“Supposing that you were in my place just now, and I in yours, would you claim that it all belonged to you?” she asked, lifting her searching glance to his face.
“No,” he said; “but the difference in our positions, because I am not in your place and you in mine, alters the case altogether.”
“I cannot agree with you, and you would have considered me mean and dishonorable if I had taken advantage of the will and claimed the whole, would you not?”
“But you did not; you have done your duty, and consequently have nothing to regret,” Earle replied, evasively.
“But you did not answer my question,” Editha persisted; “would you think that I had done right if I had not wished to give you this money and withheld it from you?”
“N-o,” he admitted, reluctantly.
“And, morally speaking, it does not belong to me.”
“The will gave you everything—”
“That is not the question,” she interrupted. “If you were pleading the case for someone else, you would claim that the money did not belong to me, and that, morally speaking, I had no right whatever to it?”
“Editha, you should be a lawyer yourself.”
“That is a side issue; as they say in court, stick to the point if you please,” she again interrupted; “have I not stated the truth?”
“I am obliged to confess that you have; but, Editha, I do not want the money, though I am very grateful to Mr. Forrester for his kindness in remembering me, and to you for wishing to carry out his wishes so faithfully.”
“Please, Earle, take it; I want you to have it, and I wish to do just as he told me to do; you will wound me deeply if you refuse it,” she urged.
It was a very sweet, earnest face that looked up into his, and, had she pleaded for almost anything else, Earle would have found it impossible to resist her. His own face grew grave, almost sorrowful, as he returned:
“I would not cause you a moment’s unnecessary pain, Editha, but I must be firm in this decision. Forgive me if I wound you; but, on the whole, I am glad that Mr. Dalton win a name and position entirely by my own merits. By my own strong arm will I carve out my future and win my way in the world; by my own indomitable will and energy, with the help of a greater than I, I will rise to honor, and not upon the foundation that another has built,” he concluded, with an earnestness and solemnity that made Editha’s heart thrill with pride and the conviction of his ultimate success.
“You are very brave,” she said, with admiring but still wistful eyes. “But suppose Uncle Richard had added a codicil to his will in your favor, what then?”
A smile of amusement curled his lips.
“Then I suppose the wheels of my car of ambition would have been unavoidably clogged with this fortune. It would not then have been optional with me whether I would have it or not.”
“It shall not be now; the money is not mine—I will not keep it. I should be as bad as those wretches who robbed us, and then left you to suffer for their crime,” Editha exclaimed, passionately, and almost in despair at his obstinacy.
“I do not see how you can do otherwise than keep it; everyone will tell you that it is legally yours.”
“There is many a moral wrong perpetuated under the cloak of ‘legality,’” she began, somewhat sarcastically, then continued, more earnestly: “My proud, self-willed knight, whose watchwords are truth and honor, whose life is to be ‘foursquare,’ do you think there are no others whose natures are reaching out after the same heights? There are others, Earle,” she said, more softly, with glowing cheeks and drooping lids, “who look with longing eyes toward the ‘jasper walls,’ and ‘gates of pearl;’ and can one be ‘true and honorable’ and keep what does not belong to one?”
“How can I convince you, Editha, that I cannot take this money?”
“But what will you do, Earle? How will you begin life again?” she asked, anxiously.
“I have a little, enough for that, laid by; and now, with three years’ interest added, it will be sufficient to give me a start, and I shall do very well. Do not allow my refusal to comply with your wishes to disturb you. Try to imagine that if Mr. Forrester had never known me he would never have thought of making a change in the disposition of his property,” Earle concluded, lightly.
“But the if exists, nevertheless. He did make the change; and, once for all, I will not have my conscience burdened with what is not my own. Earle, on the twentieth of next November I shall deposit in the First National Bank of this city ten thousand dollars, with a year’s interest, to your credit,” she asserted, resolutely. “Meanwhile,” she added, “Mr. Felton told me to say to you that he thought he could arrange some way for you to keep your head above board if you will go to him.”
“I thank Mr. Felton, but I think the term ‘self-willed’ may be applied to someone else besides myself,” Earle answered, smilingly.
“Earle,” cried the lovely girl, turning suddenly upon him, and, with something of her old girlish impulse, laying one white hand on his, “if you won’t do as I wish for your own sake, won’t you for mine? and”—the color mounting to her forehead as she made the delicate offer—“until the year expires, won’t you please go to Mr. Felton and get whatever you need?”
If Earle was ever impatient and rebellious in his life he was at that moment at the cruel fate that kept him from reaching out and clasping his beautiful beloved in his arms, and telling her all the love of his great heart.
How delicately she had worded her proposition! She had not coarsely offered to give him money from her own income, feeling that his proud spirit would recoil from coming to her, a woman, for help; but she had made Mr. Felton the medium through which all his needs might be supplied until he could establish himself in business.
He ventured to take that small hand and press it gratefully.
“Editha,” he said, striving to control the quiver in his tones, “to both of your requests I must repeat the inevitable ‘No;’ and for the first, I entreat you not to tempt me, for I cannot tell you how hard it is to refuse anything you ask me, and particularly in that way. As for the other, there will be no need, I trust, for I have enough for all my present wants, and before that is gone I hope to be in a way to supply all future needs.”
Editha sighed but saw that his decision was unalterable, and so let the matter drop for the time.
They chatted for an hour on various topics, and then Earle rose to take his leave.
She longed to ask him to come again on the morrow to dine, as she had planned, knowing how lonely he would be when everybody else was so gay; but she knew that it would be no pleasure for him to meet Mr. Dalton in his present mood; but she did ask him to call whenever he was at liberty, and she added, with one of her charming smiles:
“Uncle Richard’s books are all here; won’t you come and avail yourself of them whenever you like?”
He thanked her with a look that made her cheeks hot again, and then she asked him to wait a moment and she would bring him his package. She was gone scarcely three minutes and then came back with it in one hand, and the loveliest little bouquet imaginable in the other.
It was composed of stiff holly leaves, with their glossy sheen and bright winter berries, clear and red, and vivid in their contrast. It was as lovely a bit of floral handicraft as Earle had ever seen, and his eyes lighted admiringly as they rested on it.
“It is for you, Earle,” Editha said, simply, seeing his look, and handing it to him. “I made it for you this morning, hoping you would come today. You will not expect me to wish you a ‘merry Christmas;’ but,” in low, sweet tones, “I will say instead, ‘Peace, good-will toward men.’”
Earle was too deeply moved to reply.
He stood looking down upon the glossy red and green, a mist gathering over his eyes in spite of his manhood, and blessing her in his heart for those precious words that told him he had been remembered before he was seen.
She had “made it for him that morning, hoping he would come today!”
Her white fingers had put every shining spray in its place, and she had thought of him the while!
Oh, why must he stand there with sealed lips, when he longed to say so much?
She would not mock him with the usual Christmas formula; but what could have been sweeter or more appropriate than the gentle, low-spoken “Peace, good-will toward men?”
He slipped the package into an inside pocket, never mistrusting that it had been tampered with, nor that its contents had unlocked for Sumner Dalton the door to a mystery that he had long sought to penetrate in vain.
“Thank you,” he said, as he buttoned his coat, “for caring for this; it is very precious to me; and someday I will tell you why and show you its contents. This much I will tell you now—had it been lost or destroyed, my identity would also have been destroyed.”
Editha looked up in surprise, but she asked no question.
His identity destroyed! Was it possible that Sumner Dalton’s keen eyes could have missed anything of importance within that package?
Editha accompanied him to the door, and parted from him with a simple “good night,” and then went quietly and gravely to her own room. But she had sent him forth full of courage and hope in spite of his present loneliness and unpromising future; and that bunch of holly was the most precious thing that the world held for him that day, the fair giver excepted.
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