CHAPTER XXVII

EM.’S DAYS AT EDENGARDEN

Within the island’s calm retreat She leads a sort of fairy life, Careless of victory or defeat, In the word’s ceaseless toil and strife. ANON.

Our little heroine’s life in Edengarden seemed to her something like that of a princess in fairyland.

She lived in ease and luxury, surrounded by beauty and splendor.

No services were required from her.

The Lady of Edengarden made out for her the programme of a course of reading which she recommended the girl to pursue, and Em. gratefully and gladly devoted a few hours of every morning to these studies. Mrs. Lynn also instructed her chosen pupil in the French and German languages, and in vocal and instrumental music, and in sketching and embroidery.

Em. was very happy, or she would have been but for one tormenting thought which presented itself again and again—the thought that she herself was making no sort of return for all these benefits—no, nor doing any useful thing, as far as she could see, for any human being.

This thought sometimes made Em. so unhappy that at length she felt forced to speak of it to her benefactress. She watched for an opportunity to do so, and it came at length.

She was sitting with Mrs. Lynn in the boudoir of the latter and engaged on a beautiful piece of satin embroidery, mere useless “fancy” work, such as Em. in her practical life had never “fancied.”

“You look very thoughtful, my child. Are you homesick, Em.?” inquired the lady.

“Oh, no, dear madam, no!” earnestly replied the girl.

“What is the matter then, my love! Do you not enjoy yourself here?”

“Yes, dear lady, but——”

“But what?”

“I am not doing any service for you in return for all the great benefits you lavish on me. I am not doing anything for anybody in the world, and——”

“Well, Em.?”

“Well, dear lady, I feel as if I were doing wrong. I have been taught that life was not given us for mere selfish enjoyment, and I have been trained to a busy and active life.”

“And you think that you are doing no good here?”

“I am living a life of self-indulgence, dear lady.”

“Instead of the life of self-devotion that you have been used to, I suppose. Now listen to me, dear girl, and I will show you how mistaken you are. When I first saw you, child, I was drawn to you as you admit that you were to me. In my seventeen years of utter isolation from all society I have never met any one to whom my heart went out as it did to you. In the short time I have known you, my child, I have learned to love you more and more. I keep you near me. I direct your education. It is a happiness to me to do this.”

“But I do nothing for you, dear lady.”

“Yes, you heal me, child. _You heal me of a long, long heart-sickness._”

“Oh, madam, if I could think myself so privileged, so honored and _blessed_ as to be able to do that, I should indeed feel that my life were well spent!” exclaimed the girl with enthusiasm.

“Then content yourself, my child, for I have told you the truth. It can be summed up in two words—I teach you. You heal me.”

And indeed it was so. The lady was educating the girl and the girl was drawing the recluse out of herself, out of her morbid thoughts, out of her solitary life.

A proof of this soon occurred.

Dr. Willet came to the island. The recluse Lady of Edengarden not only received him, as indeed she did on his first visit, but also pressed him to stay and dine.

The good doctor did not need much persuasion. He readily consented to remain. He brought Em. news of her father’s family, who were all well with the exception of Ann Whitlock, whom he reported to be very much in the same condition in which Em. had left her.

It was in the afternoon of that day when Em., having left the room for a few moments, and Dr. Willet, finding himself alone with his hostess, said:

“That little girl is doing you good.”

“Yes, she is a healing angel to me,” answered the lady.

“Well, now, let me tell you one thing. It is from no peculiar merit in the girl, although she is a good child. It is only because she is not yourself. She is somebody outside of yourself. She is company, in fact. That is the reason why she has done you good. Now, dear friend, let me assure you that the more company you see, within certain limits, the more good you will receive,” said the doctor.

The lady did not reply. The doctor, encouraged by her silent toleration of his argument, continued:

“There is your old friend and neighbor, Commodore Bruce, with whom you know I am staying. How rejoiced he would be to hear news of you. He has never ceased to mourn you as dead, Emolyn Wyndeworth! Let me tell _him_, at least, that you live and are well and near him.”

“Oh, no, no, no!” exclaimed the Lady of Edengarden suddenly and vehemently—“if you wish to break up my home here and send me forth again a wanderer and a vagabond on the face of the earth, you will betray my secret to _him_ of all men!”

“My dear lady, say no more! say no more! Your secret is as safe with me as with the dead!” hastily answered the doctor.

The return of Em. put an end to the conversation, and Dr. Willet soon after took his leave.

In the course of the same week Susan Palmer came to see her daughter, and at Mrs. Lynn’s cordial invitation spent the day.

On bidding good-by to the lady she said:

“I fear, dear madam, as you are a-sp’iling that girl for a poor man’s wife, with all the luxuries and elegancies as you are a-pampering her up with.”

“Do not fear. If nature has not, from the beginning, spoiled her for a poor man’s helpmate, education, at this late day, cannot do it. Besides, Susan Palmer, why should she ever be a poor man’s wife?” inquired the lady.

This question arrested Susan’s attention at once. Though in the act of departure she paused, turned around and exclaimed:

“Oh! now I suppose Em. has been telling you about her wealthy lover!”

“Her ‘wealthy lover?’ Indeed not,” replied the lady with an anxious glance towards Em., who blushed to the edges of her hair.

“Well, then, she _will_ tell you, ma’am, for I haven’t got time! Em., tell the lady all about it, and she will be able to advise you just as well as anybody in this world! Tell her all, Em., and don’t blush up so, my girl! You behaved well in that business, child, and haven’t got nothing to blush for!” said Susan Palmer proudly. And then, having kissed her daughter and shaken hands with her benefactress, Susan went down to the beach to be rowed home by old ’Sias.

The Lady of Edengarden made it a matter of conscience to speak to her young protégée on the subject suggested by Mrs. Palmer. She understood well, also, how to prepare for such a confidential conversation.

There was one room, the most plainly furnished in the Villa of Edengarden, which was the favorite evening resort of Mrs. Lynn and her young companion, because it was warmed by an old-fashioned open wood fire.

In this room Em. and her patroness sat in the evening after the departure of Susan Palmer.

Pony came in to light the lamps.

“No, don’t do that yet awhile. We will sit in the firelight,” said Mrs. Lynn.

“It _is_ cozy like, too,” Pony admitted as she retired.

“Draw your chair up to the fire, Em., put your feet on the fender; and now, love, tell me who is this wealthy lover of yours of whom your mother spoke?” softly inquired Mrs. Lynn when they were left alone in the ruddy glow of the smoldering red hickory fire.

“He is Lieutenant Ronald Bruce, the nephew and heir of Commodore Bruce, of The Breezes,” answered Em. in a low and tremulous tone, feeling well pleased that her face was but dimly visible in the glowing gloom of the firelight.

“‘Bruce!’ That name again,” murmured the lady thoughtfully. Then, after a meditative pause, she said: “My dear girl, if you feel that you can confide in me, tell me all about it.”

Thus appealed to, Em. would have told her little love story to her friend, cost what it might to her own feelings.

It was not hard for her to tell it there. She drew her low chair closer to the lady’s side, and with her head on the lady’s lap she related the circumstances of her first meeting with Ronald Bruce, when he had saved her from falling under the uplifted club of an intoxicated and infuriated ruffian. How their acquaintance progressed. How he had been her disinterested friend, and had tried to improve her condition even before he had declared himself to be her lover. How he had procured her first the offer of a situation of nursery governess in his sister’s family, which she had refused for her father’s sake. How afterwards, when her family had come to Virginia, he had managed so that his mother had offered her a situation as seamstress at The Breezes. How Commodore Bruce had taken a fancy to her himself, and when she was capriciously discharged from his sister-in-law’s service had engaged her as his reader, which post she had filled to his satisfaction until his nephew, Lieutenant Ronald Bruce, had confessed his attachment to her and announced his intention of marriage.

“That was noble and upright in the young man. What followed?” inquired Mrs. Lynn as Em. faltered and paused in her narrative.

“Commodore Bruce summoned his nephew to his presence and threatened to disinherit him unless he gave me up.”

“What next, my dear? Speak on. Speak low if you like, but do not be afraid. What did the young man say or do?”

“Ronald declined to give me up, and accepted disinheritance as a consequence.”

“That was right. And then? What then? Compose yourself, my child, and speak on.”

“Then,” continued Em. in a low and faltering voice that seemed as if it would break down at every syllable—“then Commodore Bruce sent for me and told me all that he had told _him_—Ronald—and threw himself on what he was so polite as to call _my_ honor, and asked me to reject Ronald for Ronald’s own sake.”

“And you, darling, _you_, what did you do?”

“I—rejected—him—and went home—with my father,” said Em., utterly breaking down.

“Do not weep so bitterly, my love. This lover—he _never_ acted on your forced rejection, Em.?” tenderly inquired the lady.

“No—no! He would not listen to it. He said he was of age, and no one had the right to control him in a matter so near his heart,” continued Em., recovering something of her self-possession.

“Go on, dear.”

“He appealed to my father; but my dear father was prouder in his way than Commodore Bruce himself. He refused me to Ronald. He said that no daughter of his should ever enter any family who would not be as glad to receive her as ever he could be to give her. And that Lieutenant Bruce must never come again until he came authorized by Commodore Bruce to ask my hand.”

“And so,” said the lady, “between these two stiff-necked old men—the haughty old commodore and the arrogant overseer—you are to be sacrificed! For, I suppose, as a dutiful child, you will abide by your father’s decision.”

“Oh, yes, madam, for I promised my dear father never to marry without his consent, and I know he will never consent to my marriage with Ronald,” said Em., almost on the verge of breaking down again, but she succeeded in controlling herself.

“So, finally, all depends upon the will of Commodore Bruce?”

“Yes, madam.”

“But, again, the young man—has he accepted this decision of your father?”

“No, indeed, madam, no more than he accepted that of his uncle or mine! He says he will never give me up!”

“He is right. Commodore Bruce must be brought to terms. Do not misunderstand me, however, my dear. I strongly disapprove of young people taking the law into their own hands in this respect, and marrying against the wishes of their parents. But Ronald’s case is an exceptional one. Commodore Bruce is not his father, nor his guardian, and has no right to dictate to him, a man of twenty-five, on the subject of his marriage, nor has he the moral right to bribe him by a rich inheritance to give up his true and honest love. With your father’s feeling on the subject I can better sympathize. I, too, if I were so blessed as to have a daughter, would object to her entering even a royal family by marriage, if they were not as proud to receive her as I to bestow her. Yes, I understand and appreciate your father’s motives. It is the old commodore who must be set right. Now, cheer up, my darling. I will be the fairy godmother who shall bring the prince back to your feet,” said the lady, pressing a kiss upon her brow.

Em. looked up—gratefully, doubtfully; for how, she asked herself, could this lady, with all her great power and good will, influence Commodore Bruce to put away those strong prejudices of caste which formed a part of his very being?

The Lady of Edengarden, watching her expressive face, read her thoughts and answered them as if they had been spoken.

“Commodore Bruce knew me and loved me from my childhood up to the time I was about sixteen years of age. I have not seen him since. The trial that blighted my life has prevented me——But I cannot speak of that! He believes me dead! But for your sake, my darling, I will burst the bonds that hold me. I will break the silence of years. I will go to Commodore Bruce in person, and I know I have the talisman which shall bring him to favorable terms. Cheer up, Em.! All will be well.”