Edith Lyle

“Colonel Schuyler:—Your sister, Mrs. Sinclair, is lying very low, and desires to see you as soon as possible.

This short epistle found Col. Schuyler in Florence, and brought him back to England at once. During the winter and the early spring Mrs. Sinclair had been failing, and when May came, the change in her for the worse was so perceptible that she asked Edith to write for her brother, whom she wished to see once more. To Edith the thought of losing her kind mistress was terrible, for, aside from the genuine love she bore the lady, she knew that losing her involved also the loss of the home where she had been so happy, and she dreaded to encounter the curious suspicions she would have to meet alone and unprotected.

“What will you do when I am gone?” Mrs. Sinclair said to her one day when speaking of her approaching decease, and as Edith made no reply, except to cover her face with her fingers, through which the tears trickled slowly, she went on: “You seem to me like a daughter, and I shrink from the thought of leaving you alone. If it were possible I would make you independent, but at my death the Oakwood property reverts to a nephew of my husband’s, and I cannot control it. I can, however, do something for you, and will. Edith, I have never mentioned the subject to you before,—but, was there not,—did not my brother offer himself to you last summer when he was here?”

“Yes,” came faintly from Edith; and Mrs. Sinclair continued:

“And you refused him, subject, I believe, to a reconsideration?”

“I refused him, and with no thought of reconsideration on my part. My decision was final,” Edith said; and Mrs. Sinclair continued:

“It is not for me to dictate in such matters, perhaps, but it seems to me you will do well to think of it again should he renew the matter on his return. It is an offer which any woman should consider seriously before rejecting it. I know he can make you happy, and you would far better be his honored wife even if he is many years your senior, than be cast upon the world with your face and manner as a lure to evil-minded men, who hold a governess as only fair spoil.”

“I know it; I know all that, and feel it so keenly,” Edith answered, and for an instant there came over her such a feeling of utter loneliness and desolation, and such a shrinking from the future which might be to her what the past had been until she knew Mrs. Sinclair, that she would almost have taken Colonel Schuyler had he been there then.

Smothering her sobs and commanding her voice as well as she could, she continued:

“I would rather die than meet again what I have met in the families where I was employed before I knew you, but mother is poor and growing old, and I must do something.”

“Why not take the home offered you?” Mrs. Sinclair asked, while Edith sat motionless as a stone, her face as white as ashes, and that horrid sensation in her throat which kept her from uttering a word.

When at last she could speak she astonished Mrs. Sinclair by falling on her knees beside the bed, and crying out:

“Oh, Mrs. Sinclair, you do not know, you cannot guess what and who I am, or you would know that could never be. Forgive me, I have been an impostor all these years, but now I must speak and tell the whole, and then you shall judge if your proud brother, knowing all, would take me for his bride.”

Twenty minutes passed, and then Edith sat, paler and more motionless, if possible, than before, her hands pressed tightly together, and her eyes cast down as if afraid to meet the wondering gaze fixed upon her. She had withheld nothing, and Mrs. Sinclair knew the entire story, from the hasty marriage in New York, up to the day when the message came that the little baby was dead. She had been astonished and shocked, and indignant with the mother rather than with the daughter, who, she readily saw, had been only a tool in an ambitious, heartless woman’s hands, and whom she could forgive for a deception which had wronged no one and in which no one but herself was as yet involved. So, when at last she spoke, her voice was just as kind and gentle as of old, as she said:

“My poor child, yours is a strange experience for one so young. Truth is always best, and it would have been just as well if it had been confessed at first. I am glad you have told me; and if my brother asks you again, as I think he will, you must tell him. It may make a difference with him. I do not know. Certainly it would, if withheld till after marriage. That deception he would hardly forgive. Leave me now, please; I am very tired, and you, too, need the open air after your great excitement.”

The next day Col. Schuyler came alone, as Godfrey was in Russia. But Mrs. Sinclair was too weak to talk much, and could only look her pleasure at her brothers presence. Three days after she died, with her head on Col. Schuyler’s bosom and Edith kneeling at her side. Just at the last she had taken the girl’s hand, and putting it in that of her brother had whispered:

“Take care of her, Howard. She is worthy, and has been like a daughter to me.”

“I will,” he answered, emphatically, as his hand closed tightly over that of Edith, who felt as if that hand-clasp bound her to the fate which she had no longer power to resist.

Immediately after the funeral she returned to her mother’s cottage, but before she went Col. Schuyler asked for a private interview, which she granted with a feeling that it was of no use to struggle against what was inevitable. Col. Schuyler had tried to forget her during his travels; had tried to reason with himself that a poor unknown girl, who was his sister’s hired companion, was not a fitting match for a Schuyler whose first wife had been a Rossiter. But one thought of the beautiful face, and of the sweet voice which had sung to him in the twilight was sufficient to break down every barrier of pride and make him willing to sacrifice a great deal for the sake of securing her. And so it was that on his return to England he was resolved to renew the offer once made and rejected, and to take no refusal this time. His sister approved his choice, and had sanctioned it with her dying breath, and thus reassured he went to Edith with a feeling of security as to the result of the interview, which manifested itself somewhat in his manner, and made Edith feel more and more how helpless she was, and how certain it was that her secret must be told.

“Edith,” he began in his stiff way, as he took a seat beside her, “just before I left Oakwood last August, I held a conversation with you which I know you have not forgotten. I asked you to be my wife, and you asked me if I loved you. I could not say yes, then, for though I admired and respected, and wanted you, I did not experience any of those ecstatic thrills of which we read in books, and which very young people call love. And even now,”—he paused a moment and hesitated, and a flush spread itself over his face, “even now I may not feel as a younger man would in similar circumstances; but when I tell you that you have scarcely been out of my mind for a moment during my absence, that I have dreamed of you night and day, and that in all the world there is nothing I desire so much as I desire you, I think you will be satisfied that if I do not love you as you have imagined you might be loved, I am in a fair way to do so, if I receive a little encouragement.”

He paused, but Edith did not speak, and sat before him with her long eyelashes cast down and her hands working nervously together. She knew he was sincere, though his wooing was so different from what Abelard’s had been, or what Godfrey’s would be were he in his father’s place. But Godfrey was young, and Abelard had been young, too, and both were different from this cold, proud man of forty, who had unbent his dignity so much, and who seemed so earnest, and even tender as he went on to tell her of all she had to gain if she would go with him to the home he would make more beautiful than it already was, for her sake. It was a very pleasant picture he drew of the future, but it did not move Edith one whit, because she felt certain that this life could not be hers if she told him all, as she must surely tell him, if he persisted in his suit. She admitted to him that he was not disagreeable to her; that she found his society pleasant; that she believed him to be a man of honor, who would try to make her happy; and when he asked why she hesitated, she opened her lips to tell him, but could not speak the words.

“I can write them better,” she thought, and when she could command her voice, she said to him: “Give me a few days, a week, in which to think, and then I will write you my decision. I know you honor me, and I thank you for it, and believe you sincere, and for that reason, would not for the world deceive you. I have something to tell you which I can better put on paper. Let me go now, for I feel like suffocating.”

She spoke slowly and with difficulty, and her face was so white, that Col. Schuyler felt alarmed lest she should faint, and passing his arm around her, led her to the balcony and brought her a glass of water, and laid his hand softly on her hair, and seemed so kind and thoughtful, that for the first time there awoke in Edith’s heart a throb of something like affection for this man who might make her so happy.

“Oh, if I only could forget the past and accept the life offered me,” she thought, as an hour later he put her into the carriage which was to take her to her mother’s, and then pressing her hand deferentially, said to her: “I shall await your answer with a great deal of impatience, and shall not consent to receive an unfavorable one.”

He lifted his hat, and the carriage drove away to Caledonia Street, where her mother was expecting her.