CHAPTER XXII

HOPE

Hope bids me hope! In that consoling word Is peace and comfort to my soul restored. None without hope has loved the brightest fair. For love can hope where reason would despair. LORD LYTTLETON.

“Did you ask that young gentleman not to visit here again? Did you put him on his honor not to come?” anxiously inquired Susan Palmer of her husband as he re-entered the kitchen after seeing his guest off.

“Well,” said honest John, hesitating and looking down, “to tell you the plain truth, Susan, I didn’t.”

“You didn’t!”

“No: I have been trying to tell him all yesterday and this morning, but he was so very kind and pleasant all the while that I hadn’t a chance to break in anywhere, even edgeways, to say he must never come back again. Well, I hadn’t the heart to do it—there! Why, I coud as soon have struck a friend in the face while he was smiling up into mine.”

Em. went up to her father, put her arms around his neck and kissed him quietly.

“Yes, but you know I ought to have forbidden him the house, though, all the same, Em.,” whispered John Palmer, shaking his head.

“Oh, no, no, no, dearest father, no! Your kind heart led you right,” exclaimed Em.

“I know I can trust you, Em. You will not disobey me, my girl?”

“Oh, never, never, father! I will never do anything you disapprove.”

“I know it, my darling. You are safe enough.”

“That’s not the question,” snapped Susan. “It’s the girl’s peace and quietness I’m thinking of, and if that young man is to be allowed to come here whenever he pleases, how is she ever to forget him, I’d like to know? Being as things are, the sooner Em. leaves home the better.”

“Well,” sighed John, “’twas _you_, Susan, as gave him the heartiest welcome last night, and now you blame me—but ‘sich is life.’”

Having finished with his favorite bit of philosophy, John took his pipe from the mantelpiece and walked out to the orchard, where the negroes were gathering winter apples for storing.

He had scarcely left the house when Dr. Willet arrived on his morning visit.

He tied his horse and walked into the open door of the passage without ceremony.

Em. met him as she came out of the kitchen.

“Well, my dear, how do you do? How do you like living in the country? It is only a few months since you left town, yet I dare say now it seems to you quite a long while,” said the good doctor cheerfully as he shook hands with the girl.

“It seems a lifetime, sir, since we lived in Laundry Lane! Longer even than that. It seems—that period, I mean—to belong to some remote state of pre-existence!” answered Em.

“I thought so! I thought so!” said the doctor with evident satisfaction. “So you don’t pine to return?”

“Oh, no, sir, no! And yet the old lane and the poor, dear children who still live there!” said Em. compassionately.

“Yes, yes. Ah, here comes your mother! Well, Mrs. Palmer, how is our patient to-day?”

“Oh, doctor, good-morning to you! She is better, I think. I have just come down from her bedside. She can move her hands and feet, but can’t turn over yet. She can also chew and swallow, but she can’t speak. And she seems to understand every word we say to her, but she can’t answer except by signs.”

“Just so, but all that is a very great improvement since yesterday. I will go up and see her.”

“Oh, doctor, wasn’t it a Providence you being in the neighborhood just at this time?”

“It was fortunate,” said Dr. Willet as he followed Mrs. Palmer upstairs.

Em. took her workbasket and sat down to sew until the return of her mother and the physician.

After an absence of about twenty minutes they came down the steps, talking cheerfully, the doctor more than confirming the hopeful report of the nurse as to the old patient’s amendment.

When Dr. Willet had taken a kindly leave of all the family and had ridden away Em. said to her mother:

“Don’t you think now that we might trust Mrs. Whitlock with Aunt Monica and Aunt Sally, and get father to take us to Edengarden, mother?”

“Yes, child, yes, I was planning the very same thing myself! I’ll send one of the boys to fetch Sally, and you can throw your shawl over your head and run down and meet your father in the orchard and speak to him about taking us. And, mind, girl, be cautious! Not one word about the Lady of Edengarden until we three are on the boat alone together in the middle of the river, out of earshot of every human being except ourselves.”

“Oh, mother, never fear me!” said Em. as she took her shepherd’s plaid shawl from its peg, wrapped it around her head and shoulders, wearing it as gracefully as ever Andalusian beauty wore her fascinating “rabousa,” and tripped out of the house on her way to the orchard.

“Father, you are not very busy to-day?” she said interrogatively as she came up to John Palmer, standing amid a group of busy apple-pickers.

“Well, no, Em., not particularly. Why did you ask, my lass?”

“Because, if you can spare the time, mother and I wish you to take us in the row-boat down to Edengarden Island.”

“Well, there! If I have asked your mother once to go to Edengarden I have asked her fifty times this summer, and never could get her to go. No, she wouldn’t trust herself on the water! But now she will go! Well, ‘sich is life.’ Of course I’ll spare the time, my dear! When do you want to go?”

“Now.”

“That’s short and sweet. Now, then, run home and get ready, and I will send word down to old ’Sias to have the boat out.”

Em. went home as fast as she had come out, and told her mother to prepare for the trip.

As for Em. herself, _her_ preparations were soon made; they consisted only in lowering her shawl to her shoulders, putting a little brown felt hat on her head, and drawing a pair of gloves on her hands.

Susan only waited to receive Aunt Sally and place her in charge of the house, and then went with Em. out to join John, who, in his Sunday clothes, was waiting for them out of doors.

The three walked briskly down the leaf-strewn road that led to the park gate.

“Long time since you and I have had an outing together, Susan! And this came so unexpectedly it has all the pleasure of a surprise as well as of a holiday,” said John gayly, for he seemed honestly to enjoy his “outing,” as he called it, in company with his wife and his favorite child.

“I’m sure, John, this time yesterday I had as much idea of going to Europe as going to Edengarden.”

“Well, and what put it into your head to-day, my dear?”

“I—I changed my mind,” replied Susan evasively.

“You did? Surely. Well, ‘sich is life.’”

“Here we are at the gate, and it is propped open. Old ’Sias is down on the shore with a boat, I suppose, and as for Sereny, she’d see us stand here forever before she would take the trouble to open the gate. The only way in which _she_ ever exerts herself is in whacking old ’Sias,” said Susan as they passed through the gate, which John carefully locked behind them. Then he put the key in his pocket, with the intention to give it to old ’Sias down on the shore.

A rapid walk through the thick woods brought them down to the banks of the river.

Old ’Sias was there, standing in the boat and looking out for the expected party.

John Palmer greeted him kindly, delivered the keys of the gate, and cautioned him against ever leaving it open again.

Old ’Sias remarked that “Jordan was a hard road to travel for any poor pilgrim who had duties to perform on the one hand, and a Sereny to perform on him on t’other.”

But he resigned the command of the boat to John Palmer and made the best of his way to his special post of duty.

John helped Susan into the boat and seated her comfortably.

Em. entered, unassisted, seated herself in her accustomed place and took the tiller.

John laid himself to the oars and rowed swiftly from the shore, while Em. steered for the island.

“What in the name o’ sense makes you hold on to that stick, Em.?” inquired Susan, impatient of every motion she did not understand.

“This stick, as you call it, mother, is the rein that guides our water-horse down the river.”

“I wish you would talk straight sometimes, Em.!” exclaimed her mother.

The girl laughed and then explained the simple action of the tiller.

When they had reached the middle of the river Em. said:

“Dear father, rest on your oars for a little and let us drift slowly down stream. We did not bring you out to-day for pleasure only, but to tell you a secret that we feared the very leaves might hear, and the birds repeat, if we told it on land.”

“Eh! What! A secret! A dangerous secret!” exclaimed John, pausing in his work and staring at his daughter. “None o’ the boys ain’t been up to doing nothing wrong, have they?” he continued in growing anxiety.

“No, dear father, nor the girls, neither,” said Em.

“Whatever trouble you may have to bear in this world, John Palmer, you may be sure of one thing—that your children will never bring it on you,” added Susan.

“But—what’s the matter?” inquired puzzled John.

“Tell him, mother,” said Em.

“Well, then, listen and never breathe it to a human being—Emolyn Wyndeworth is found!”

John instinctively opened his mouth to speak, but found no word to express his astonishment.

“But I thought she was dead and gone long, long ago,” he said at length.

“No, she was only dead to the world, and gone far out of the ken of all who ever knew her before,” replied Susan.

“She is the Lady of Edengarden,” added Em.

“Eh! What! The Lady of Edengarden! Then she must be our Lady of the Manor as well!” exclaimed John in growing amazement.

“She _is_, and just as soon as this Manor of the Wilderness came into her possession through the death of her relative, old Mr. Elphine, don’t you see, she thought of us at once? Yes, and through Dr. and Mrs. Willet she managed to get us all out here without appearing to have anything to do with it.”

“Well,” said John meditatively, “I often wondered how such a thundering great piece of good fortune ever did come to us, who wa’n’t much blessed with rich friends! And now I know. But why should the lady wish to keep her existence a secret?”

“Oh, John! you are a man, or you never could have asked that question! Do you think she could ever get over the cruel wrong that was done her, innocent as she was? Why, even the poor wounded dove goes away and hides itself from all eyes to die. She was wounded to the very death, and yet she could not die, and she would not kill herself; but she went away and hid herself—innocent as an angel though she was!” answered Susan with emotion.

“I’d faced it out if I’d been her!”

“Of course you would; but you wa’n’t her! And now, John Palmer, do you listen to me,” said Susan solemnly. “Nobody but you and me, in this neighborhood, knows anything about the awful affliction that drove this innocent lady into the wilderness. And we must be cautious! We must never speak of her even to each other, unless we find ourselves in a boat in the middle of the river, as the only place where we can be quite sure of not being overheard.”

“But—how on earth did you find all this out?” inquired John, scratching his head.

“I will tell you all about it,” said Susan.

And she forthwith gave him a detailed account of Em.’s visit to the isle, her unexpected meeting with the Lady of Edengarden and the ensuing interview between them, during which the lady had revealed herself to the girl and sent messages to the parents requesting the latter to visit her at Edengarden.

While Susan eagerly narrated and John earnestly listened Em. steered the boat as it floated slowly down stream.

“Now what do you think of that?” said Susan when she had finished her story.

John did not know what he thought, and so he could not tell her.

“Why don’t you speak?” demanded Susan.

John had nothing new to say, so he said:

“‘Sich is life!’”

And he took up both oars and laid himself to them with such vigor that the boat soon cleared the intervening water and grounded on the sands at the landing of Edengarden Island.

“Now you two just walk up to the house. I’ll stay here with the boat until you come back,” said John Palmer as he helped his wife and daughter to land.

“Now, John, I do think that is too queer of you! Why can’t you walk up with us when the lady sent you an invitation to come, too?” exclaimed Susan, with an injured air.

“Now look here, dear woman, s’pose the lady did invite me along of you and Em. It was just out of kindness and politeness to your husband and Em.’s father, not that she cared about seeing me. And don’t you see, if she was _ever_ so friendly to me, as she _is_, and has shown herself to be bringing us all to the Wilderness manor-house, _still_, in this first meeting, don’t you think she’d prefer to see you _without_ me? You’ll have such a deal of woman’s affairs to talk about, you know!”

“Father is right, mother,” said Em.

“Well, then, come along,” exclaimed Susan. “And John, you had better fasten the boat and walk up and down in the sunshine on the beach. If you sit there you will take cold.”

With this parting advice Susan followed her daughter, who led the way up the narrow path leading from the landing through the belt of silver maples, and through the ornamented grounds, and up terrace upon terrace, until they reached the middle and highest part of the island upon which the mansion of white stone stood.

Susan was loud in her expressions of admiration at the beauty of the place.

When they reached the marble steps that led to the main entrance, Em. passed up quickly before her mother and rang the bell.

A colored boy about sixteen years old opened the door.

“Is Mrs. Lynn at home?” inquired Em., after she had recovered from her momentary surprise at the unexpected sight of a stranger.

The page took a deliberate view of the mother, and then inquired in his turn:

“Name o’ Palmer?”

“Yes, Mrs. Palmer and her daughter,” answered Em.

“My mist’ess is at home. Walk in,” said the boy, opening wide the door.