CHAPTER XXXIX
CIRCUMSTANCES ALTER CASES
When Mr. Dalton turned so abruptly and left Mr. Tressalia and Editha he was indeed terribly excited.
He walked rapidly to a remote portion of the park, where, out of the sight and sound of everyone, he paced back and forth under the trees, muttering fierce imprecations upon someone, and gesticulating in a wild and angry manner.
“I must get away from here at once,” he muttered. “Whatever could have possessed them to follow us here? Of course, she cannot know anything, and what especial interest can she have in my daughter? But I’m terribly afraid some unlucky remark or question will expose all—Editha is so charmingly ingenuous,” he went on, with sarcastic bitterness; “and I have lost enough already—I will not be balked at this late day. I have fought fate all my life, and now I’ll conquer or die. We will get out of this place instantly; and since they are French, they will not mind, perhaps, if we take ‘French leave.’”
A half-hour or more Mr. Dalton spent by himself giving vent to his anger and vexation, and then, in a somewhat calmer frame of mind, he went to seek Editha to return to their hotel. He was obliged to search some time, for the throng was immense, and it was no easy matter to discover a person once lost sight of.
But he found them at length all together, Madam Sylvester and her brother, Mr. Tressalia and Editha, standing by one of the fountains as if they had just arisen from their seats and were contemplating retiring from the place.
Madam was standing by Editha, her arm lightly clasping her waist, and talking in her gentle, charming way, while the young girl’s eyes were fixed upon her face in a look of earnest admiration.
“A very touching scene,” sneered Mr. Dalton, as he came in sight of them. “A clear case of mutual affinity that is remarkable under the circumstances. My daughter seems to possess a power of attraction in certain directions that is truly wonderful.”
He stood looking at the group for a few moments with a dark frown upon his brow, and as if undecided whether it was best to advance or retreat.
He seemed at length to decide upon the latter course, for he turned, and was about to slip away when Editha espied him and called out:
“There he is now. Papa, come here, please;” and she went toward him, drawing Madam Sylvester with her. “I want to introduce you to my friend, Madam Sylvester,” she said, with a sweet smile, and all unsuspicious of the tempest raging within Mr. Dalton’s bosom.
It was done, and there was no escape now, but it was a very pale face that Sumner Dalton bent before Madam and the steel-like glitter of his eyes repelled her and made her think of Editha as a poor lamb in the clutches of a wolf.
“She does not look like him; she must resemble her mother; but she has hair and eyes like—” was madam’s inward comment, but which was broken short off at this point with a regretful sigh.
But the next moment she had turned to him again with her usual graciousness.
“Mr. Dalton,” she said, “I have been telling your daughter how disappointed I was to find her gone so suddenly from Newport. I had only just become acquainted with her, to be sure, but I had promised myself much pleasure in my intercourse with her.”
Mr. Dalton bowed and smiled, and mechanically repeated something stereotyped about “mutual pleasure,” &c., and then turned to be presented to Mr. Gustave Sylvester, but not before Madam had noticed again that steel-like glitter in his eyes.
“My dear,” she said to Editha, “I have not yet asked you where you are stopping?”
“At the Grand Union.”
“That is capital, for we have all secured rooms there also, and I hope we shall see much of each other.”
“I hope so, too,” Editha said, heartily, and thinking how all her life she had longed for just such a friend as she thought Madam would be.
“How long do you remain?” she asked.
“I am sure I cannot tell. As long as Papa desires, I suppose, as I make my plans conform to his as much as possible,” and Editha cast an anxious glance at Mr. Dalton, whose strange manner she had remarked; and was somewhat troubled by it. He was sustaining rather a forced conversation with Mr. Gustave Sylvester, but his manner was nervous and his brow gloomy and lowering.
“You are looking better than when I saw you at Newport,” Madam said, with an admiring glance at her beautiful companion.
“Yes, I think my health is improving,” Editha answered; but she sighed as she said it, and a look of pain crossed her face.
Speaking of her ill-health always reminded her of its cause, and sent her thoughts flying over the sea to Earle.
The sigh touched Madam, for she divined its cause; and, drawing the fair girl a little closer within her encircling arm, she laid her lips against her ear and tenderly whispered:
“We must never forget, dear, no matter how dark our lot, that One has said, ‘Thy strength is sufficient for thee.’”
Editha started, and her lip quivered a trifle.
“Do you think it is possible to realize that under all circumstances?” she asked, a slight tremulousness in her tone, notwithstanding her effort at self-control.
Madam drew her gently to one side and began walking slowly around the fountain, in order to be beyond the hearing of the others.
“In the first moments of our blind, unreasoning grief, perhaps not,” she answered, with grave sweetness. “I have known, dear child, what it is—
‘To wander on without a ray of hope,
To find no respite even in our sleep,
Life’s sun extinguished, in the dark to grope,
And hopeless through the weary world to creep.’
That is the way life seemed to me once, but in time I came to realize that in this world of weary toil and waiting there must be some burden-bearers, and God meant me to be one of them.”
“But all burdens are not heavy alike,” murmured Editha.
“No, dear; but if ‘Our Father’ sends them, we may be very sure that it is right for us to bear them; and Frances Anne Kemble tells us:
‘A sacred burden is this life ye bear,
Look on it—lift it, bear it patiently,
Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly,
Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin,
But onward, upward, till the goal ye win.’”
“Those are brave, cheering words. If I could but have some kind comforter like you all the time, I could bear it better,” Editha said, with fast-dropping tears, and realizing more than she had ever done before how utterly alone she was in the world.
“My dear, you forget the great Divine Comforter. Haven’t you yet learned to trust Him?” Madam asked, with great tenderness.
“You—oh, yes; at least I thought I had until this last trouble came upon me, which has made it seem almost as if ‘a blank despair like the shadow of a starless night was thrown over the world in which I moved alone.’ Many and many a time I have felt as if I must lie down like a weary child and weep out the life of sorrow which I have borne, and which I still must bear until the end,” the young girl said, with almost passionate earnestness.
“My poor child, how my heart grieves for you. Mr. Tressalia has told me something of your trouble, and I think I never knew of anything quite so sad before; but, believe me, some good must come out of it. You are young, and this sad lesson patiently learned will give you strength of character for the future, whatever it may be. You know we are told that out of sorrow we come forth purified if we bear it rightly.”
“Then I fear I shall never become purified,” Editha answered, bitterly. “I cannot bear it rightly. I am not patient. My heart is constantly rebelling against the unjustness, as it seems to me, of it all. Why did not some instinct warn me that Earle was my brother before I had learned to love him so well?” she concluded, wildly.
“Hush, dear,” Madam said, with gentle reproof, but her fine face was very grave and troubled. “We cannot understand the why of a great many things; we know that they are, and we have no right to question the wisdom of anything that is beyond our comprehension; but I am greatly interested in this sorrow of yours and the young Marquis of Wycliffe. I know it will do you good to unburden your heart, and if you can trust me who am almost a stranger to you, tell me more about it.”
“You do not seem like a stranger to me. You are more like a dear, long-tried friend, and I can never tell you how comforting your kind sympathy is to me,” Editha returned, with eyes full of tears.
Madam’s only reply was a closer clasp around the slender waist, and the young girl continued:
“When we met you that day in Redwood Library at Newport, and your hand closed over mine with such a strong yet fond clasp, and you looked into my eyes in that earnest, tender way you have, I could have wound my arms about your neck and wept out my grief upon your bosom even then.”
Madam’s eyes were full of tears now, but Editha did not see them, and went on:
“I will gladly tell you all about my sad trouble, only I would not like to weary you.”
“It will not weary me, dear.”
And so Editha, won more and more by this beautiful woman’s sweetness and gentleness, poured into her sympathizing ear all her story, beginning with the time Earle had come to a poor boy into her uncle’s employ, and ending with their final separation when they were told that they were both children of one father.
“It is a very strange, sad history,” Madam said when she had finished; “but the facts of the case are so very evident that there can be no way of disputing them; and this uncle of yours, what a noble man he was.”
“Yes; he was Mamma’s brother, and a dear, dear uncle. Oh! if he could but have lived,” Editha sighed.
“My dear, he could not have prevented this.”
“No; but he would have comforted me as no other could have done.”
“You were very fond of him, then?”
“Yes; I believe I loved him better than anyone in the world. That does not seem just right to say, perhaps, when Papa and Mamma were living, but he was always so sympathizing and tender with me. He would always listen patiently and with interest to all my little trials, and sympathize with me when everybody else laughed at them as trifles.”
“Had he no family of his own?”
“No; he was what we call an old bachelor,” Editha replied, with a little smile; “and he was the dearest old bachelor that ever lived. I used to think sometimes that he must have loved someone long ago, for there were times when he was very sad. But he never seemed to like the ladies very well; he would never go into company if he could help it, and, whenever I said anything to him about it, he used to tell me, in a laughing way, that he was waiting to be my escort, so as to frighten away all unworthy suitors.”
“He did not like the society of ladies, you say?”
“No; he was always coldly polite to them, but would never show them any attention.”
“He liked one well enough, it seems, to leave her all his fortune,” Madam said, with an arch look into the beautiful face at her side.
“Yes; he gave me all he had, excepting the ten thousand that Earle was to have. I was always his ‘pet,’ his ‘ray of sunshine,’ his ‘happiness,’ but I would rather have my dear, kind uncle back than all the fortunes in the world,” she said sadly.
“He was your mother’s brother, you say, dear—what was his name?” asked Madam, who had been very deeply interested in all she had heard.
“It is a name that he was always very proud of—Ri—”
“Editha!” suddenly called Mr. Dalton from behind them. “I have been chasing you around for the last half-hour. Do you know what time it is?”
“No, Papa.”
“It is after one, and time that delicate people were at rest.”
“Very well; I am ready to go now if you wish,” she said, quietly.
Mr. Tressalia and Mr. Sylvester now joined them, and the former made some proposal to Madam regarding an excursion for the morrow.
While they were discussing the question Mr. Dalton tried to hurry Editha away, regardless of the propriety of the thing.
“I must bid them goodnight, Papa,” she said, coldly, and wilfully standing her ground, while she wondered at his extreme haste.
“Be quick about it, then, for I am dused tired,” he said, impatiently.
She then said goodnight to them in a general way and turned to accompany her father, not very well pleased to be treated so like a child.
“My dear,” called Madam, with an anxious look in her eye, as she saw how pale and weary Editha was looking, “get all the rest you can, and then come to me as soon as you have breakfasted tomorrow, for I have something very particular to say to you. My room is No. 105.”
Editha promised while Sumner Dalton ground his teeth with inward rage at this familiar request.
“What you can see in her to admire is more than I can imagine,” he remarked, curtly, on their way out of the park.
“Why, Papa, where are your eyes? I think she is the most charming woman I ever met,” Editha replied, with unwise enthusiasm.
“I prefer you should not be quite so free with an entire stranger—it is not proper,” he growled.
She set her little chin, and her eyes flashed with a light that told that she considered herself old enough and capable of judging for herself upon such matters.
“Have you enjoyed the evening?” she asked, avoiding any reply to his remark.
“Well enough until they came,” was the curt retort.
“I am sorry if you do not like my new friends, Papa, but I thought you used to admire Mr. Tressalia,” Editha returned, a little spirit of mischief prompting the last half of her remark.
“He is well enough, only, according to my way of looking at things, it does not seem just the thing for him to be hanging around you all the time and running after you as if you belonged to him,” Mr. Dalton said, crossly.
He was evidently entirely out of sorts, and Editha knew it would be better to let the matter drop, but she could not resist one more little shaft.
“I thought you liked me to receive Mr. Tressalia’s attentions,” she said, innocently.
“So I did once, but circumstances alter cases sometimes; and—we will not discuss Mr. Tressalia further, if you please.”
He was undeniably cross, and she was glad to escape to her room as soon as they reached the hotel, while she was inwardly rejoicing at the prospect of having Madam Sylvester’s companionship for a while at least.
Madam stood and watched her as she left them and moved away with her father.
Her face was very sad and her voice trembled slightly as, turning to her brother, she asked:
“Of whom does she remind you, Gustave?”
“Of no one in particular,” he returned, indifferently.
“Not of—” and she bent forward and whispered the rest of the sentence in his ear.
“No, not if my memory serves me right,” he said, shaking his head; “and yet,” he added, “there may be an expression about the eyes that is familiar. I had not thought of it before.”
“Gustave, her name is Editha,” Madam said, in a low voice, her face very pale, and with an eager look into her brother’s face.
“There are doubtless a thousand Edithas in the world; do not allow yourself to become imaginative at this late day, Estelle,” he returned; and, dropping the matter there, madam signified her readiness to return to the hotel also.
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