CHAPTER XIX
THE GOOD FAIRY
Better to hope, though the clouds hang low, And to keep the eyes still lifted, For the sweet blue sky will soon peep through, When the ominous clouds are drifted. There never was a night without a day, Nor an evening without a morning; And the darkest hour, the proverbs say, Is just before the dawning. BALDWIN’S MONTHLY.
“Well, the first time I ever saw your portrait—that one hanging there in the bridal dress and veil—I loved it. Oh! I loved it so I could have sat all day and gazed upon it! And every time I have come back to the island it was not to see any of the beautiful objects, it was to spend all the time I had to spare in sitting before your portrait and gazing on it. And now I have _you_!” concluded the girl with a convulsive clasp of the lady’s form.
“Yes, now you have me,” replied the latter, once more reseating Em. on the sofa and sitting down beside her. “Now you have me. Therefore I feel the less hesitation about disabusing your mind about that picture. It is not my portrait, though very like me. It is my mother’s portrait, taken in her bridal costume.”
“What! that picture the image of you, dear madam, and yet not you! But it is beautiful! Beautiful, for all that,” exclaimed Em., gazing from the face of the lady to that of the picture.
“My mother was a most beautiful woman,” murmured the lady.
“And the portrait which hangs in the long drawing-room of the old Wilderness manor-house—the portrait of a lady in the costume of the time of Queen Elizabeth—whose face so much resembles yours and your mother’s?” said Em. interrogatively.
“Oh, the portrait of a remote ancestress, _so_ remote that even tradition has little to say about her, except that Sir Walter Raleigh wrote sonnets in praise of her beauty.”
“That beauty has been faithfully handed down,” said Em.
“The resemblance has, at any rate. But, my child, who told you that the picture there was my portrait?”
“Oh! Several persons, I think; but the first person who said so was old ’Sias, the gate-porter at the Wilderness Manor.”
“Ah! I know—a little shriveled old man who refers everything back to the time when he was a boy, several hundred years ago, ‘more or less?’”
“Yes,” laughed Em., “the very same.”
“What other marvels did he tell you about me? I would like to know. I have never seen the old creature, nor any one else belonging to the old Wilderness estate, although I am their lady; but I have heard about them through my agent, and I am aware that many strange reports are afloat respecting myself, merely because I appear here only a few months in the year, and then live a strictly secluded life. Come! What have you heard respecting your namesake, Emolyn?”
“Oh, dear lady, many absurd rumors, that I now perceive must have been false. That you were a semi-supernatural being—a ‘White Spirit’; that your form was seldom visible, but when seen it was clothed from head to foot in long, white robes; that your face was never seen by any one, for it was always hidden beneath a white veil that flowed over your whole figure.”
“I could laugh, Emolyn, were not my laughing days past. White, indeed, is my usual dress when here in summer. It is the most convenient and comfortable wearing apparel. Often, too, when walking about the grounds of my isolated island home I have thrown over my head, instead of hat or bonnet, a white gauze scarf. From their boats on the river, or even when sightseeing on the island, or in the house, the marvel-mongers have seen me so, and so reported me. You know how a story grows by repetition where there is nothing to contradict it? I was never seen in any way but this, for I never left my island home except to leave the country, and I never received any visitors. Behold the mystery of the White Spirit!”
Em. sighed. It is not always and to all persons an unmixed pleasure to have a beautiful supernatural illusion dispelled. She would have liked to tell the lady her vision of the radiant woman, on the first and second night of her stay in the old Wilderness manor-house; but she felt that the time had not come for such confidences; and, furthermore, that the time had come half an hour ago for her to take leave of her new friend and start for home.
“And what more do they say of me, child?” continued the lady.
“That you are the benefactress of the neighborhood and—White Spirit, or what not—you are an angel of benevolence.”
“It shames me to be over-praised, little girl. Tell me something they say which is not praise.”
“Well, some scout the White Spirit; they say you are a childless widow, and that your name is Mrs. Lynn.”
“They do know quite a great deal about me, it seems. Well, my dear child, as to this last rumor, it is not for _you_ to set them right by making any explanations. You could not even do it properly, because you do not know the circumstances. Let people continue to speak of me as widow, and to call me Mrs. Lynn! They will not be so far wrong. Lynn is only an abbreviation of my rightful name—however they came by such a fractional part of the truth! So, my dear, let me still be Mrs. Lynn to those who like to call me so. And mark me—to no one except your father, your mother, and old Monica, must you reveal the secret that the Lady of Edengarden is no other than the poor Emolyn Wyndeworth. They will respect my wishes and keep my secret. The world thinks that I am dead, and it thinks truly, for I am dead to the world. I come out of my grave only for the sake of the few who love me.”
“You dream beautiful dreams in your grave, dear lady! you who dreamed this Edengarden into existence!” murmured Em.
“Do you love this beauty so much, fair child? Then perhaps you will come and share it with me. You are my little namesake. I shall beg you of your mother some of these days. She has so many daughters she might spare you to me!”
“Oh, she would! she would! My dear mother would give you anything in her possession that you might ask of her! And as for me—oh, how I should love to live with you!” exclaimed Em. with a burst of enthusiasm.
“What! and leave your _own_ mother?” wistfully inquired the lady, as if to test the girl.
“Oh, my dear mother has father and so many other boys and girls, as you said, she can spare me; and _you have no one to love you_,” answered Em. in a voice of ineffable tenderness and pathos.
The lady stooped and kissed her for all reply.
“Oh, how hard it is to get away! How I dislike to go. Yet I must. I have overstayed my time. Dear lady, good-evening,” said Em. as she arose and lifted the lady’s hand to her lips.
“Stay! Who is going to take you home?”
“Old ’Sias, the gatekeeper, madam.”
“He of the ‘hundred and fifty years, more or less?’ Where is he?”
“Waiting below, madam, in his boat—_The White Dove_.”
“Then come, my dear, and I will walk with you as far as the Silver Circle, for so we call the grove of maple trees that surrounds the shores of the island—though it is a golden circle now, for the leaves have put on their autumn livery,” said Mrs. Lynn, as she lifted a light shawl of shining silky white gauze from a table near, threw it over her head and shoulders and led the way from the house.
“That is a beautiful girdle of maples around the island—silvery in the summer and golden in the autumn,” said Em. as she walked beside her conductress down the marble steps that led from terrace to terrace from the summit to the plain.
“Some day you shall see that golden circle from the top of the observatory, for from there you can see the whole of it and the effect is very fine,” answered the Lady of Edengarden as they crossed the beautiful grounds and entered the circular grove.
“Now I shall wish to come so often, for now it will not be the likeness but the living lady that I shall long to see,” said Em.
“You shall come as often as you like, and stay as long as you like. And tell your mother, dear, that I never leave the confines of the island, except when I leave the country. So I cannot go to see her; but I would be very happy to see her here—and your father and old Aunt Monica. They could come, as others come to see the island, and then they should see me.”
“And Ann Whitlock? _Poor_ Ann Whitlock?” pleaded Em. as the lady paused to take leave.
“No, my child, I do not know much about her; and my secret must not be confided to any one but the three faithful friends in whom I can utterly confide. Not that there is anything at stake, either; only, you see, poor Emolyn Wyndeworth was stoned to death many years ago, and she is dead and in her grave, and she will rise only for the two or three who love her.”
“Oh, but you dream such beautiful dreams in death. You have dreamed this once barren rock into a blooming paradise, you have dreamed blessings all around you! Oh! how I wish I could dream such beautiful dreams as you do! Especially that I could dream such blessings on all the poor!”
“Stay, my child! I have just thought how I may employ you. You shall realize the dreams of blessings. My almoner is somewhat indolent with declining years, and not quite equal to her duties. You shall be a ministering angel to the needy, and find out all who are poor, sick, or suffering in mind or body, and bring them to my knowledge, and afterwards take them relief according to their requirements. I am sure such occupation would suit you.”
“It would make me happier than I ever hoped to be in this world!” exclaimed Em. with enthusiastic delight.
“Come to me, then, to-morrow. And let the others that I have named come then, or at any other time. See! the sun is on the verge of the horizon. You must hasten home. Oh! my darling, I am so thankful you wandered over my grave and raised me from it. Good-night! God bless you!” And the lady drew the maiden to her bosom and kissed her and turned away.
Em. watched the receding figure until it was lost in the grove, and then she hurried down to the shore, where she found the boat tied to its post and rocking on the water, and old ’Sias sitting in the stern fast asleep.
She woke him up, and then said:
“I have kept you waiting too long, haven’t I, Uncle ’Sias? I have been gone more than three hours.”
“Oh, no, honey; I has had a lubly quiet time here by myself! And I had such a hebbenly dream! I dreamed how de Lord had tuk Sereny—or de debbil had got her, I didn’t know which; ennyhow she had ’parted dis life, and I was libbin’ alone at de gate-house and smokin’ my pipe in peace ’dout de fear o’ being scalped or performed on enny more, and how you and Marse Lieutenant Ronald Bruce, Esquire, was de lord and lady ob de manor libbin’ up at de hall, and you was a-gwine out for a drive in a cherryrout and four, and you called me to open de gate, and I jumped to do it and woke up and found it was all a dream! How dese dere ’cevin’ dreams do cheat us, Miss Em.,” said the old man as he busied himself untying the boat.
“They do so, Uncle ’Sias! But don’t let this dream cheat us into being out after dark. Make haste, please,” said Em. as she stepped into the boat and seated herself and took the tiller.
The old man laid himself heartily to the oars, and the little boat shot from the shore and soon left the island far behind it.
The sun had sunk behind the mountains that formed the west bank of the river, and cast their deep shadow far across the water; but Em., for the first time, took little notice of the changes in the face of nature—she was absorbed in thoughts of the strange discovery she had made that day—the White Spirit, the Wonder of the Wilderness, the Lady of Edengarden, no other than Emolyn Wyndeworth, who had disappeared from the world so long ago, that she was supposed to have been many years in Heaven.
How amazed, how incredulous, and at length how delighted her mother would be to hear the news!
But the strangest truth in the girl’s experience now was the sudden and perfect love and trust she already reposed in Emolyn Wyndeworth, the Lady of Edengarden! She felt that near that lady was _rest_—rest for her own troubled heart; that on her bosom, as on some angel mother’s, she could lay her weary head and tell all the secret thoughts and affections, faults and temptations that troubled her.
She even resolved as she sat silently meditating in her seat, while she mechanically steered the boat, that some day she would tell this lady all about her ill-starred love affair with Ronald Bruce, for surely the sympathetic Emolyn Wyndeworth would be a disinterested umpire between the old and young. And who knew? she was so wonderfully powerful she might even find a way to make them—the poor young lovers—happy.
“Here, Miss Em.! Whar yer gwine? Here we is op’sit’ de landin’, honey! Turn in!” were the words of old ’Sias that woke Em. from her deep reverie.
She steered for the landing and in a few minutes reached it.
Old ’Sias drew in his oars and secured the boat.
Em. jumped out and stood waiting until the old man joined her.
Then they walked through the woods together. It was growing dark and there was no moon.
When they reached the park wall and the gate-house Em. took a silver half dollar from her pocket and said:
“Here, Uncle ’Sias, give this to Sereny from me.”
“Yes, Miss Em. Thanky, honey! I understands! You give me this for Sereny ’cause yer think maybe it’ll save me from a performance. Which you may be sure it will, honey. But I ain’t a-gwine to leabe you here, Miss Em. I gwine to see yer safe t’rough dese woods and in sight ob de house ennyhow,” said old ’Sias as he persistently trotted by the young girl’s side, guarding her with the fidelity of a Newfoundland dog.
It was surprising, too, to see how fast the little old man could get on with the aid of his short, thick stick, which, at every step, he put down with the vim of a third foot.
They soon came out of the thickest woods to where the trees grew farther apart, under the walls of the manor-house. They diverged to the right, where the broad gate leading to the rear of the premises stood open, and through which they could see the firelight gleaming from the windows of the Red Wing.
Here the old man stopped and said:
“I’ll bid yer good-night here, Miss Em., and hurry back home. No use to try Sereny’s temper more’n necessary, if I has got a silver half dollar to satisfy her. So I’ll bid you good-night, and de Lord bless you, honey.”
“And you, too, Uncle ’Sias, good-night, and thanks,” answered Em. as she entered the gate and walked rapidly towards the lighted windows of her cheerful home.