CHAPTER XXXV
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
Editha Dalton and her father went to Newport—he to get all the pleasure out of life that he could by mingling in the sports of the gay world and spending his daughter’s money, she to bear with what submission she could the weary routine in which she had no heart, and which was but a mockery to her.
Earle had, faithful to his word, made over the long-disputed ten thousand dollars to Mr. Dalton, and this, together with Editha’s handsome income which she tacitly yielded up to him, enabled him to live like a prince.
But people wondered to see how the brightness had faded from the fair girl’s life.
She took no interest in the pleasure and frivolities of the fashionable watering place.
She would not attend their parties and social gatherings, but wandered alone by the sea, or sat in seclusion of her own room, pale, sad, and silent, thinking ever of the one so dear, who at her bidding had put the ocean between them.
Her rebellious heart had refused to banish him from the place so long his own or yield up one tithe of the love which she had lavished upon him.
The very name of brother applied to him, made her shudder with repulsion, and the thought of being his sister made her cry out with despair, and grow sick and faint with horror.
Mr. Dalton, to his credit, be it said after Earle was well out of the way, changed his course and treated her with great gentleness and kindness.
Perhaps he felt a thrill of remorse as he saw her day by day growing so frail and slight and bearing with such sad patience the sorrow which he had brought upon her.
Perhaps, since we cannot conscientiously attribute really unselfish motives to him, he only realized that she was the goose who brought him the golden eggs, and considered it a matter of policy to conciliate her favor.
Be this as it may, he improved his advantage to the fullest extent.
Money slipped through his fingers like water; he had never seemed so gay, reckless, and intent upon his pleasure before, and more than one old associate remarked that “Mr. Dalton grew fast as he grew old.”
But a Nemesis was on his track.
A relentless fate was pursuing him, crying, “No quarter until the mighty one is fallen.”
His days of unholy living and revenge, of treachery and wrong, were numbered, though he knew it not, and no spirit of warning whispered that for every evil deed he had done, he must soon give an account.
It was a matter of some surprise to Paul Tressalia that Earle should return to England alone.
He had fully expected that he would bring Editha as a bride to Wycliffe, and he had tried to school his own heart to bear it. He saw at once that there was some deep trouble on his mind; no one ever had such heavy hollow eyes, such a worn, haggard face, without some adequate cause. But, as Earle did not offer any explanation for it, he could not question him. And so the days went by, while he began to mature his plans for his own future.
Earle at once entered upon his duties as master of Wycliffe, and was received most heartily by all the adherents of the former marquis, and soon gained an influence and footing in the country which ought to have satisfied the most exacting.
He was feted and flattered, quoted, advised, and sought after; but never for a moment did he forget that sad white face that for a few minutes had lain on his breast for the last time, nor the last heart-broken farewell and the low-murmured “God ever bless and keep you.”
But the time came when he had to fight another mighty battle with himself.
His hopes for the future had all been destroyed by a single blow, but Paul Tressalia still loved Editha, he knew, and there might be a ray of hope for him.
The question arose within him, “Ought he not to tell him of the change in the relations which existed between Editha and himself, and if there was the shadow of a possibility of his winning her love, ought he not to allow him to put it to the test?”
One day he sought him, with a pale, worn face.
He had conquered a mighty foe—himself.
He remembered that Editha had once told him when speaking of her refusal of Mr. Tressalia’s offer of marriage, that “she had never suffered more at the thought of giving pain than she did in refusing him.”
Someone has written, “Pity melts the mind to love,” and perchance, out of her sympathy for him, something of affection might arise, and a life of quiet happiness be gained for her as well as for his cousin.
“Paul, I have something of importance to communicate to you,” he said, coming to the point at once.
“Say on, then; are you in trouble? Can I do anything for you?” Mr. Tressalia asked, with an anxious glance into the worn face.
“No, there is nothing that you or anyone else can do for me; it is to give you a chance in the race after happiness that I come to you,” Earle answered, with something of bitterness in his tone.
“I do not understand you,” he returned, a flush rising to his cheek.
“Do you still love Editha Dalton?” Earle asked, setting his teeth to keep back a rebellious groan.
“Do you need to ask me that question?” Paul Tressalia, returned, reproachfully, his face suddenly paling now. “I must always love her.”
“Then go and win her if you can; the way is open; there is nothing to hinder you,” Earle said, wiping the cold sweat from his face.
His cousin looked at him in blank astonishment, wondering if he was losing his mind that he should make such a statement as that, or if it was some lover’s quarrel that had driven Earle home in such despair.
Earle, without waiting for a reply, proceeded to relate to him the story of Editha’s relationship to himself.
“It is killing me,” he said when he had finished. “I rebel every day against the cruel fate that has separated us, for I love her only as a man can love the woman who should be his wife and shall love her thus until I die. You love her, also; and perhaps, if you can win her, you both may yet know much of domestic peace. If I cannot conquer my sinful heart I may die, and you will then regain what you have lost, while Editha will, after all, be mistress of Wycliffe.”
“Earle, do not speak thus,” Mr. Tressalia said, with deep emotion, for the wild bitterness and misery of his cousin grieved him. “I was glad to relinquish Wycliffe to you when I knew that it rightly belonged to you. I do not covet it, and I would not have matters in this respect other than as they are. I hope, too, that you may live to see a lusty heir growing up to take it after you. But this is a strange story you have told me—Editha your half-sister! Mr. Dalton your father!”
“Yes, it is even so, though I would gladly give every acre of my inheritance to have it proved otherwise.”
“You must resemble your mother’s family alone, then, and she her mother, for there is not a single point of resemblance between you to testify to any such relationship.”
“I do not know as to that. I only know that the facts exist to prove it,” Earle said, dejectedly.
“Poor child! she loved you so devotedly, she was so proud of you, and she must have suffered also. I would that I could give you both back your lost happiness. Is it not strange that only out of the ruin of either your hopes or mine happiness can come to either of us?” Mr. Tressalia said, regretfully.
“It is ruined whether you win or not, and yet I go on sinning day after day, loving her as madly as ever,” Earle cried, clenching his hands in his pain. “Go, go,” he added; “when she is once your wife, I may be able to gain something of peace or the semblance of it.”
Paul Tressalia needed no second bidding, though it must be confessed he was not elated by any very strong hope of success.
His heart told him that if Editha loved with the same intensity as Earle, it would be as enduring as eternity, and he could never hope to win her as his wife.
Still, he could not rest content until he had once more put his fate to the test, and, with a tender though sad parting from his noble-hearted kinsman, he once more crossed the broad Atlantic.
He reached Newport at the height of its gayety and was enthusiastically welcomed by his old acquaintances.
To his surprise Mr. Dalton received him with great coolness, surmising at once the errand upon which he had come.
He had discovered, if others had not, that Paul Tressalia was no longer “heir to great expectations,” and he was not at all anxious now either that Editha should marry.
She was ill, failing daily and hourly, as everyone could see, and many predicted a rapid decline and an early death unless some change for the better occurred soon.
Mr. Dalton shook his head sadly and sighed heavily, as a fond and anxious parent should do, whenever interviewed upon the subject, but secretly he was calculating his chances of falling heir to her snug fortune.
“She is my daughter,” he would say to himself, rubbing his hands together in that peculiar way he had. “If she dies unmarried and without a will—and I don’t think she has thought of such a thing as that—of course, being her nearest blood relation, I shall inherit;” and he always ended these confidential cogitations with a chuckle, accompanied by a look of infinite cunning.
So it will be readily seen that Mr. Dalton had no idea of encouraging Mr. Tressalia as a suitor, especially as he could no longer offer her any peculiar advantages.
But that young man was shocked at the change in the fair girl. The laughing eyes were sad and lusterless now; the rounded cheeks had fallen away, leaving great hollows where before had been a delicate sea-shell bloom; the scarlet lips, which had ever been wreathed in sunniest smiles, wore a mournful droop, and were sad, blue, and drawn with pain.
She greeted him, however, with more than her accustomed cordiality, and listened eagerly while he told her all about Earle and the magnificent inheritance that had fallen to him. Anyone who could tell her aught concerning her dear one was doubly welcome.
She was never weary of hearing about Wycliffe, and all the noble ancestors of the noble house of Vance. She took a strange, sad pleasure in the mournful history of the unfortunate Marion, and Paul Tressalia, seeing it, gratified her as far as he was able, though he could but realize that he was making no progress in her affections.
“I am afraid Newport does not agree with you, Miss Dalton,” he remarked one day, as he came upon her sitting listless and dejected under a tree near the sea-shore, her eyes fixed dreamily upon the restless waves, a look of pain contracting her fair forehead.
“I do not enjoy Newport,” she said, with a sigh; “at least the gay hurry and bustle that we are constantly in.”
“Then why not go to some more quiet place? Why not go to some farm among the mountains, where the air is drier and purer? I do not like to see you looking so ill,” he returned, with visible anxiety.
“Papa is not content unless he can be where there is considerable excitement,” she answered, wearily; “and I don’t know as it matters much,” she added, with a far-away look.
“It does matter,” Paul Tressalia burst forth, indignantly; “if this air is too heavy and bracing for you, you should not be allowed to remain here another day. Do you not see that your health is failing? You are weaker and thinner even than when I came, a week ago.”
She smiled faintly, and, lifting her thin hand, held it up between her eyes and the sun.
It shone almost transparent, while every bone, vein, and cord could be distinctly traced.
With a little sign, she let it drop again into her lap, and, turning to her companion, said, with a grave, thoughtful look on her face:
“I wonder what the spiritual body will be like?”
“Miss Dalton—Editha, what made you think of that?” he asked, startled by her words, yet knowing very well what had made her think of it—that little hand had more of a spiritual than a material look about it.
“One cannot help thinking of it when the physical body is so frail and so easily destroyed. When one is putting off the mortal, one naturally is curious to know what the immortal is like;” and she spoke as calmly as if she were merely talking of changing a dress.
“Editha, you are not—you do not think you are so ill as that?” he cried, almost awe-stricken.
“Yes, I hope so; what have I to live for now?” she asked, turning her sad eyes upon him, and his heart sank in despair within him. “You know all my trouble,” she added, a moment after; “you know how all my hopes were crushed. I am, as I might say, entirely alone in the world; I have hardly a friend on whom to depend, no one to comfort and cheer me, and I have no right even to the name I bear. Do you think that life holds out very much that is pleasant to me? I am young to die, and I cannot say that I do not dread the thought of being laid away and forgotten, and yet I know it would cure my pain—there is no pain beyond, you know. If I had anything to do, if I might be of any comfort or use to anyone, if I had even one friend who needed me, I should feel differently.”
The sadness and hopelessness of her tone and words almost made him weep in spite of his manhood.
He threw himself down upon the grass beside her, with a low cry.
“Editha, there is; I need you; my heart has never ceased to cry out for you; my life is miserable and aimless without you. Come to me and comfort me, and let me try to win back the light in your eyes, the color to your cheeks and lips, and nurse you back to health. I do not ask, I do not expect, that you can learn to love me at once as you have loved, but if you will only let me take care of you, give me the right to love you all I wish, I do believe there may be something of peace for you yet even in this world. But I cannot see you die while you are so young and bright. Be my wife, Editha, and let me take you away from this noise and tumult where you can regain your health, and the world will not seem so dark to you then.”
The young girl was seized with a violent trembling while he was speaking; she shook and shivered with nervousness and excitement as if some icy blast from a snow-clad mountain had swept down upon her, chilling her through.
A bright hectic flush tinged either cheek, and her eyes, no longer listless, glowed with a brilliancy that was almost dazzling. Never while in perfect health had Paul Tressalia seen her so strangely beautiful as she was at this moment, and yet it was with a beauty that made his heart tremble with a terrible fear. With almost the impulse of a child, she reached out both her hands to him as he ceased speaking.
But he knew instinctively that it was not a gesture of assent, though he clasped them involuntarily, and started, to find how hot and feverish they were.
“Mr. Tressalia,” she said, excitedly, “I know how true and noble you are, and I know, too, that you love me with a deep, pure love. I know that you would be very tender and indulgent to me, and never allow me to know a sorrow that you could shield me from. But I cannot be your wife—I cannot be anybody’s wife—and I should only add sin to sin if I should grant your request, for I can never for a moment cease to love Earle in a way that I should not. It is that that is eating my life away—let me confess it to you, and perhaps it will help me to bear it better. I know that I ought to trample upon every tendril of affection that is reaching out after him, but I cannot; my love is stronger than I, and this constant inward warfare is fast wearing me out. Oh, if you would simply be my friend, and let me talk to you freely like this, and never speak to me of love again, it would be such a comfort to me.”
She paused a moment for breath, and then continued:
“I can trust you; I have confidence in you as I have in no other in this land. Mr. Tressalia, will you be my friend, strong and true, and only that, for the time that I, may need you?”
There was intense yearning in her look and tone. She did need just such a friend, strong and protecting, as he would be if he could have the strength to endure it.
She could not trust her father; her heart had recoiled from him ever since that day when so much of his evil nature had been revealed to her, and she had no one in whom to confide.
Day and night her busy, excited brain went over all the horror of that last interview with Earle, and day and night she constantly fought the obstinate love in her heart.
It was, as she had said, wearing her life away, and if she could but have someone in whom she could confide, it would be a comfort to her.
But could he stay in her presence, receive her confidences, hear her daily talk of Earle and her blighted hopes, and make no sign of his own sorrow and bitter disappointment?
“Be her friend, strong and true, and only that!”
The words were like the knell of doom to him; but she needed him. If she could relieve her heart of something of its burden, health might return and her life be saved. Was not his duty clear?
“And never anything more?” was his last appeal, as he held her hot, trembling hands and looked into her glittering eyes.
“And never anything more,” she repeated, after him. “It cannot be—will you not believe it?” and he knew that so it must be.
Back, back into his aching, almost bursting heart he crushed his great love, with every rebellious thought, and all the hopes that had begun to bud anew.
He would do anything so that she need not die; he would “trample upon every tendril of affection reaching out after her,” as she had said regarding her love for Earle, and become only the true and faithful friend if by so doing he could comfort and perchance save her.
Something of the struggle that this resolve cost him could be traced in the pale but resolute face, and in his quivering lips.
“Editha,” he said, solemnly, as if recording a vow, and still clasping those small hands, “it shall be as you wish; I will never utter another word of love to you; I will be your steadfast friend.”
“Oh, thank you!” and, like a weary, grieved child who has restrained its sobs until it could reach the safe and tender shelter of its mother’s arms, she dropped her head upon his shoulder and burst into nervous weeping.
He did not move, he did not speak one word to stay her tears, for he knew that they were like the refreshing rain upon the parched and sun-baked earth, and she would be lighter of heart and freer from pain for their flow.
But who shall describe the feelings of his own tried heart as he knelt there with that golden head resting so near it, and from which, for her sake, he had resolved to crush relentlessly every hope for the future?
Comentarios