Charlotte's Inheritance Part 21

"The sacrifice! No, dear, no! I understand it all. For your cruel mercenary heartless designing father's sake, you are going to marry a man whom you can't love. You are going to offer up your poor bruised desolate heart on the altar of duty. Ah, dear, you can't think I forget what you told me only two short months ago--though I seem selfish and frivolous, and am always talking about _him_, and parading my happiness, as it must seem to you, reckless of the wounds so newly healed in your n.o.ble unselfish heart. But I do not altogether forget, Diana, and such a sacrifice as this I will not allow. I know you have resigned him to me--I know you have thrust him from your heart, as you told me that night. But the hollow aching void that is left in your lonely heart shall be sacred, Di. No stranger's image shall pollute it. You shall not sacrifice your own peace to your father's selfishness. No, dear, no! With mamma and me you will always have a home. You need stoop to no cruel barter such as this marriage."

And hereupon Miss Halliday wept over and caressed her friend, as the confidante of Agamemnon's daughter may have wept over and caressed that devoted young princess after the divination of Calchas had become common talk in the royal household.

"But if I think it my duty to accept M. Len.o.ble's offer, Lotta?" urged Miss Paget with some embarra.s.sment of manner. "M. Len.o.ble is as rich as he is generous, and my marriage with him will secure a happy home for my father. The foolish dreams I told you about on Christmas Eve had faded from my mind before I dared to speak of them. I could only confess my folly when I knew that I was learning to be wise. Pray do not think that I am sordid or mercenary. It is not because M. Len.o.ble is rich that I am inclined to marry him, it is because--"

"Because you want to throw yourself away for the advantage of your selfish heartless father," interjected Charlotte. "He has neglected you all your life, and now wants to profit by the sacrifice of your happiness. Be firm, Di, darling; your Charlotte will stand by you, and find a home for you always, come what may. Who is this M. Len.o.ble? Some horrible ugly old creature, I dare say."

Miss Paget smiled and blushed. The vision of Gustave's frank handsome face arose before her very vividly as Charlotte said this.

"No, dear," she replied. "M. Len.o.ble is not an old man--five-and-thirty at most."

"Five-and-thirty!" repeated Charlotte, with a wry face; "you don't call that young? And what is he like?"

"Well, dear, I think he is the sort of man whom most people would call handsome. I'm sure you would like him, Lotta. He is so candid, so animated, so full of strength and courage. The sort of man to whom one would naturally look in any emergency or danger; the sort of man in whose company fear would be impossible."

"Diana," cried Charlotte, suddenly, "you are in love with him!"

"Lotta!"

"Yes, dear, you are in love with him," repeated Miss Halliday, embracing her friend with effusion; "yes, over head and ears in love with him. And you are ashamed to confess the truth to me; and you are half ashamed to confess it even to yourself--as if you could deceive an old stager like me!" cried Charlotte, laughing. "Why, you dear inconstant thing, while I have felt myself the guiltiest and most selfish creature in the world for robbing you of Valentine, you have been quietly transferring your affections to this M. Gustave Len.o.ble--who is very rich, and brave, and true, and generous, and what most people would call handsome! Bless you, a thousand times, my darling! You have made me so happy!"

"Indeed, Lotta!"

"Yes, dear. The thought that there was a blank in your life made a dark cloud in mine. I know I have been very selfish, very thoughtless, but I could never have been quite free from a sense of self-reproach. But now there is nothing for me but happiness. O darling, I so long to see your M. Len.o.ble!"

"You shall see him, dear."

"And in the meantime tell me what he is like."

Miss Halliday insisted upon a full, true, and particular account of M.

Len.o.ble's personal appearance. Diana gave it, but not without some sense of embarra.s.sment. She could not bring herself to be enthusiastic about Gustave Len.o.ble, though in her heart there was a warmth of feeling that surprised her. "What a hypocrite you are, Di!" exclaimed Charlotte presently. "I know you love this good Frenchman almost as dearly as I love Valentine, and that the thought of his affection makes you happy; and yet you speak of him in little measured sentences, and you won't be enthusiastic even about his good looks."

"It is difficult to pa.s.s from dreams to realities, Lotta. I have lived so long among dreams, that the waking world seems strange to me."

"That is only a poetical way of saying that you are ashamed of having changed your mind. I will tell M. Len.o.ble what a lukewarm creature you are, and how unworthy of his love!"

"You shall tell him what you please. But remember, dear, my engagement must not be spoken about yet awhile, not even to your mamma. Papa makes a strong point of this, and I have promised to obey, though I am quite in the dark as to his reasons."

Miss Halliday submitted to anything her friend wished; only entreating that she might be introduced to M. Len.o.ble. Diana promised her this privilege; but it speedily transpired that Diana's promise was not all that was wanted on this occasion.

For some time past, in fact from the very commencement of Charlotte's engagement, Mr. Sheldon had shown himself punctilious to an exceeding degree with regard to his stepdaughter. The places to which she went, and the people with whom she consorted, appeared to be matters of supreme importance in his mind. When speaking of these things he gave those about him to understand that his ideas had been the same from the time of Charlotte's leaving school; but Diana knew that this was not true. Mr.

Sheldon's theories had been much less strict, and Mr. Sheldon's practice had been much more careless, prior to Miss Halliday's engagement.

No stately princ.i.p.al of a school for young ladies could have been more particular as to the movements of her charges--more apprehensive of wolf-in-sheep's-clothing in the shape of singing or drawing-master--than Mr. Sheldon seemed to be in these latter days. Even those pleasant walks in Kensington Gardens, which had been one of the regular occupations of the day, were now forbidden. Mr. Sheldon did not like that his daughter should walk in public with no better protector than Diana Paget.

"There is something disreputable in two girls marching about those gardens together according to my ideas," said this ultra-refined stockbroker, one morning at the family breakfast-table. "I don't like to see my stepdaughter do anything I should forbid my own daughter to do.

And if I had a daughter, I should most decidedly forbid all lonely rambles in Kensington Gardens. You see, Lotta, two girls as attractive as you and Miss Paget can't be too particular where you go, and what you do. When you want air and exercise, you can get both in the garden; and when you want change of scene, and a peep at the fas.h.i.+ons, you can drive out with Mrs. Sheldon."

To this deprivation Charlotte submitted, somewhat unwillingly, but with no sign of open rebellion. She thought her stepfather foolish and unreasonable; but she always bore in mind the fact that he had been kind and disinterested in the matter of her engagement, and she was content to prove her grat.i.tude by any little sacrifice of this kind. Was not her lover permitted to spend his Sundays in her society, and to call on her, at his discretion, during the week? And what were walks in Kensington Gardens compared with the delight of his dear presence! It is true that she had sometimes been favoured with Mr. Hawkehurst's society in the course of her airing; but she knew that he sacrificed his hours of work or study for the chance of half an hour in her society; and she felt that there might be gain to him in her loss of liberty.

She told him, when next they met, that the morning walks were forbidden; and, so jealous a pa.s.sion is love, that Mr. Hawkehurst was nowise sorry to find that his pearl was strictly watched and carefully guarded.

"Well, it seems very particular of Mr. Sheldon, of course," he said; "but, upon my word, I think he's right. Such a girl as you oughtn't to go about with no better protection than Diana can give you. Fellows will stare so at a pretty girl, you know; and I can't bear to think my pearl should be stared at by impertinent strangers."

Mr. Hawkehurst did not, however, find the strict notions of his lady-love's stepfather quite so agreeable when he wanted to take his "pearl" to the winter exhibitions of pictures. He was told that Miss Halliday could go nowhere, except accompanied by her mamma; and as Georgy did not care about pictures, and found herself unequal to the fatigue of attending the winter exhibitions, he was obliged to forego the delight of seeing them with Lotta on his arm. He p.r.o.nounced Mr. Sheldon on this occasion to be a narrow-minded idiot; but withdrew the remark in a contrite spirit when Charlotte reminded him of that gentleman's generosity.

"Yes, dear, he has certainly been very kind and very disinterested--more disinterested than even you think; but, somehow, I can't make him out."

It was very well for Miss Halliday that she had submitted to this novel restriction with as good a grace, inasmuch as Mr. Sheldon had prepared himself for active opposition. He had given orders to his wife, and further orders to Mrs. Woolper to the effect that his step-daughter should not be permitted to go out of doors, except in his own or her mother's company.

"She is a very good girl, you see, Nancy," he said to the old housekeeper, "but she's young, and she's giddy; and of course I can't take upon myself to answer for Miss Paget, who may or may not be a good girl. She comes of a very bad stock, however; and I am bound to remember that. Some people think that you can't give a girl too much liberty. My ideas lean the other way. I think you can't take too much care of a very pretty girl whom you are bound by duty to protect."

All this sounded very n.o.ble and very conscientious. It sounded thus even to Mrs. Woolper, who in her intercourse with Philip Sheldon could never quite divest herself of one appalling memory. That memory was the death of Tom Halliday, and the horrible thoughts and fears that had for a time possessed her mind in relation to that death. The shadow of that old ghastly terror sometimes came between her and Mr. Sheldon, even now, though she had long ago a.s.sured herself that the terror had been alike groundless and unreasonable.

"Didn't I see my own nephew carried off by a fever twice as sudden as the fever that carried off poor Mr. Halliday?" she said to herself; "and am I to think horrid things of him as I nursed a baby, because a cup of greasy beef-tea turned my stomach?"

Convinced by such reasoning as this that she had done her master a grievous wrong, and grateful for the timely shelter afforded in her old age, Mrs. Woolper felt that she could not do too much in her benefactor's service. She had already shown herself a clever managing housekeeper; had reformed abuses, and introduced a new system of care and economy below-stairs, to the utter bewilderment of poor Georgy, for whom the responsibilities of the gothic villa had been an overwhelming burden.

Georgy was not particularly grateful to the energetic old Yorks.h.i.+rewoman who had taken this burden off her hands, but she was submissive.

"I never felt myself much in the house, my dear," she said to Lotta; "but I am sure since Ann Woolper has been here I have felt myself a cipher."

Mrs. Woolper, naturally sharp and observant, was not slow to perceive that Mr. Sheldon was abnormally anxious about his stepdaughter. She ascribed this anxiety to a suspicious nature, an inherent distrust of other people on the part of her master, and in some measure to his ignorance of womankind.

"He seems to think that she'd run away and get married on the sly, at a word from that young man; but he doesn't know what a dear innocent soul she is, and how sorry she'd be to displease any one that's kind to her. I don't know anything about Miss Paget. She's more stand-offish than our own Miss, though she is little better than a genteel kind of servant; but she seems fair-spoken enough. As to our Miss, bless her dear heart!

she want's no watching, I'll lay. But I daresay those City folks, with their stocks going up and going down, and always bringing about the ruin of somebody or other, go which way they will, get their poor heads so muddled with figures that they can't believe there's such a thing as honesty in the world."

This was the gist of Mrs. Woolper's evening musing in the snug little housekeeper's room at the Lawn. It was a very comfortable little room, and held sacred to Mrs. Woolper; the three young females, and the boy in b.u.t.tons, who formed Mr. Sheldon's in-door establishment, preferring the license of the kitchen to the strict etiquette of the housekeeper's room.

This apartment, as well as every other room in the stockbroker's house, bore the stamp of prosperity. A comfortable easy-chair reposed the limbs of Mrs. Woolper; a bright little fire burned in a bright little grate, and its ruddy light was reflected in a bright little fender. Prints of the goody cla.s.s adorned the walls; and a small round table, with a somewhat gaudy cover, supported Mrs. Woolper's work-box and family Bible, both of which she made it a point of honour to carry about with her, and to keep religiously, through good fortune and through evil fortune; neither of which, however, afforded her much employment. She felt herself to be much nearer grace with the family Bible by her side than she would have been without it; she felt, indeed, that the maintenance and due exhibition of the family Bible was in itself a kind of religion. But that she should peruse its pages was not in the bond. Her eyes were old and weak--sharp enough to discover the short-comings of Mr. Sheldon's young maid-servants, but too feeble even for long-primer.

As she looked round that snug little chamber of an evening, when her day's labours were ended, and her own particular Britannia-metal tea-pot was basking in the fender, her own special round of toast frizzling on the trivet, she was very grateful to the man to whom she owed these comforts.

"What should I be but for him?" she asked herself with a shudder; for the vision of that darksome abode shut in by high black walls--the metropolitan workhouse--arose before her. She did not know what difficulties would have barred her entrance even to that dreary asylum; she only thought of the horrors of that sanctuary, and she blessed her master for the benevolence that had accepted the service of her failing hands.

This was the servant on whom Philip Sheldon relied. He saw that she was grateful, and that she was ready to serve him with an almost slavish devotion. He knew that she had suspected him in the past, and he saw that she had outlived her suspicion.

"There is a statute of limitations to these things as well as for debt,"

he said to himself. "A man can live down anything, if he knows what he is about."

CHAPTER II.

FIRM AS A BOOK.

After that midnight interview between the two girls in Miss Halliday's bedroom, life went very smoothly at the gothic villa for two or three days, during which the impulsive Charlotte, being forbidden to talk openly of the change in her friend's position, was fain to give vent to her feelings by furtive embraces and hand-squeezings, sly nods and meaning becks, and mischievous twinkling of her arch grey eyes.