Hearts Afire (11 page)

By this time the enthusiasm was wonderful. The short, quick denials came
hotter and louder at every verse; and it was easy to understand how these
large, slow men, once kindled to white heat, were both irresistible and unconquerable.
Every eye was turned to
Joris
, who stood in his
massive, manly beauty a very conspicuous figure. His face was full of feeling
and purpose, his large blue eyes limpid and shining; and, as the tumult of
applause gradually ceased, he said,—

“My friends and neighbors, no poet am I; but always wrongs burn in the heart
until plain prose cannot utter them. Listen to me. If we wrung the Great
Charter and the right of self-taxation in A.D. 1477; if in A.D. 1572 we taught
Alva, by force of arms, how dear to us was our maxim, “No taxation without
representation.”

“
Shall we give up our long-cherished right?
Make the blood of our fathers in vain?
Do we fear any tyrant to fight?
Shall we hold out our hands for the chain?
No, no, no, no!”

Even the women had caught fire at this allusion to the injustice of the
President Grant suspending writ of habeas corpus, then hanging over the
liberties of the Province; and Mistress Gordon looked curiously and not
unkindly at the latent rebels. “England will have foemen worthy of her steel if
she turns these good friends into enemies,” she reflected; and then, following
some irresistible impulse, she rose with the company, at the request of
Joris
, to sing unitedly the patriotic invocation,—

“O fatherland, can we forget thee,—
Thy courage, thy glory, thy strife?
O Mother Kirk, can we forget thee?
No, never!
no
, never!
through
life.
No, no, no, no!”

The emotion was too intense to be prolonged; and
Joris
instantly pushed back his chair, and said, “Now, then, friends, for the dance.
Myself I think not too old to take out my young wife.”

Sir Edward, who had looked like a man in a dream during the singing, went
eagerly to Charlotte as soon as
Joris
spoke of
dancing. “He felt strong enough,” he said, “to tread a measure in the great
dance, and he hoped she would so far honor him.”

“No, I will not, Sir Edward. I will not take your hands. Often I have told
you that.”

“Just for tonight, forgive me, Charlotte.”

“I am sorry that all must end so; I cannot dance any
more with you;” and then she affected to hear her mother calling, and left him
standing among the cheerful crowd, hopeless and distraught with grief. He was
not able to recover himself, and the noise and laughter distracted and made him
angry. He had expected so much from this occasion, from its influence and
associations; and it had been altogether a disappointment. Mistress Gordon's
presence troubled him, and he was not free from jealousy regarding the man
Harleigh
. The fire of jealousy burns with very little fuel;
and Sir Edward went away from feast hating very cordially the young and
handsome
Harleigh
Daly.

Elder Van
Heemskirk
noticed everything, and he was
angry at this new turn in affairs. He felt as if Charlotte had purposely
brought Sir Edward to her table to further embarrass Sir Edward; and he said to
his wife after their return home, “My love, our son Sir Edward has lost the
game for Charlotte Morgan. I don’t care a
bodle
for
it now. A man that gets the woman he wants very seldom gets any other good
thing.”

“Elder!”

“Ah, well, there's exceptions! I have mind of them.
But Sir Edward won't be long daunted. I looked in on him as I came upstairs. He
was sitting with a law book, trying to read his trouble away. He's a brave
soul. He'll have honors and charges in plenty; and there's very few women that
are worth a good office—if you have to choose between them.”

“You go back on your words, Elder. Take a sleep to yourself. Your pillow may
give you wisdom.”

There are women who are incapable of but one affection,—that one which
affects them in especial,—and Charlotte Morgan was of this order. “
Harleigh
Daly” was perpetually on her tongue. She longed to
assume her position as wife, lover and mother.
Lysbet
Morgan smiled a little when Charlotte asked her advices about her house and her
duties, when she disapproved of her father's political attitude, when she
looked injured by his imprudence.

A tear twinkled in
Lysbet
Morgan's eyes; but she
answered, “I shall not distress myself overmuch. Always I have said, “Your father
has a big soul. Only what is good for the family that he shall do.”

“Can all be done in love?”

“It is the way of your father; and a woman must love her husband.”

“That is the truth: first and best of all, she must
love her husband, but not as the dog loves and fawns on his master, or the
squaw bends down to her brave. A good woman gives not up her own principles and
thoughts and ways. A good woman will remember the love of her father and
mother, her old home, her old friends; and contempt she will not feel and show
for the things of the past, which often, for her, were far better than she was
worthy of.”

“You speak much wisdom; Charlotte, for one so young.”

“There is one I love, mother, and love with all my heart. For him I would
die. But for thee also I would die. Love thee, mother? I love thee and my
father better because I love him. My mother, fret thee not, nor think that ever
I can really forget thee.”

Lysbet
sadly shook her head. “When I was a little
girl, Charlotte, I read in a book about the old Romans, how a wicked daughter
over the bleeding corpse of her father drove her chariot. She wanted his crown
for her own husband; and over the warm, quivering body of her father she drove.
When I read that story, Charlotte, my eyes I covered with my hands. I thought
such a wicked woman in the world could not be. Alas, how often since then I
have seen daughters over the bleeding hearts of their mothers and fathers
drive; and frown and scold and be much injured and offended if once, in their
pain and sorrow, they cry out.”

“But this of me remember, mother: if I am not near
thee, I shall be loving thee, thinking of thee; telling my husband, and perhaps
my little children about thee,—how good thou art, how pretty, how wise. I will
order my house as thou hast taught me, and my own dear ones will love me better
because I love thee. If to my own mother I be not true, can my husband be sure
I will be true to him, if comes the temptation strong enough? Sorry would I be
if my heart only one love could hold, and ever the last love the strong love.”

Still, in spite of this home trouble, and in spite of the national anxiety,
the winter months went with a delight some peace and regularity in the Morgan
household. Sir Edward ceased to visit Charlotte after the feast. There was no
quarrel, and no interruption to the kindness that had so long existed between
the families; frequently they walked from morning service together,—
Lysbet
Morgan and Madam Van
Heemskirk
,
Joris
and
theElder
Van
Heemskirk
, Charlotte and Sir Edward. But Sir Edward never
again offered her his hand; and such conversation as they had was constrained
and of the most conventional character.

Very frequently, also, Guy Barrington spent the evening with them.
Joris
delighted in his descriptions of Java and Surinam;
and
Lysbet
and Charlotte knit their stockings, and
listened to the conversation. It was evident that the young man was deeply in
love, and equally evident that Charlotte's parents favored his suit. But the
lover felt, that, whenever he attempted to approach her as a lover, Charlotte
surrounded herself with an atmosphere that froze the words of admiration or
entreaty upon his lips.

Joris
, however, spoke for
him. “He has told me how truly he loves thee. Like an honest man he loves thee,
and he will make thee a wife honored of many. No better husband can thou have,
Charlotte.” So spoke her father to her one evening in the early spring, as they
stood together over the budding snowdrops and crocus.

“There is no love in my heart for him, father.”

“Sir Edward pleases thee not, nor Guy Barrington. Whom is it thou would
have, then? Surely not
Harleigh
Daly? He is
,—
a swaggering, a boastful and a penniless tyrant. I will
not give thee to any
beggart
.”

“If I marry not him, then will I stay with thee
always.
”

“Nonsense that is. Thou must marry, like other women. But not him; I would
never forgive thee; I would never see thy face again.”

“Very hard art thou to me. I love
Harleigh
; can I
love this one and then that one? If I were so light-of-love, contempt I should
have from all, even from thee.”

“Now, I have something to say. I have heard that someone,—very like to
thee,—someone went twice or three times with Mistress Gordon to see the man
when he lay ill at the “King's Arms.” To such talk, my anger and my scorn soon
put an end; and I will not ask of thee whether it be true, or whether it be
false. For a young girl I can feel.”

“O father, if for me thou could feel!”

“See, now, if I thought this man would be to thee a
good husband, I would forgive him his light, loose life, and his wicked way he
talked to me, and give thee to him, with thy fortune and with my blessing. But
I think he will be to thee a careless husband. He will get tired of thy beauty;
thy goodness he will not value; thy money he will soon spend. Three sweethearts
had he in town before thee. Their very names, I dare say, he hath forgotten ere
this.”

“If
Harleigh
could make you sure, father, that he
would be a good husband, would you then be content that we should be married?”

“That he cannot do. Can the leopard change his spots? This is what I fear:
if thou marry
Harleigh
Daly, either thou must grow
like him, or else he will hate thee, and make thee miserable.”

“Just a young woman I am. Let us not talk of husbands. Why
are you
so hurried, father, to give me to this Guy
Barrington? Little is known of him but what he says.”

“The Van
Heemskirks
have
known him a long time. They are very good at discerning character. And I am not
in a hurry to give thee away. What I fear is, that thou wilt be a foolish
woman, and give thyself away.”

Charlotte stood with dropped head, looking apparently at the brown earth,
and the green box borders, and the shoots of white and purple and gold. But
what she really saw, was the pale, handsome face of her sick
Harleigh
Daly.

Joris
watched her curiously. The expression on her
face he could not understand. “So happy she looks!” he thought, “and for what
reason?” Charlotte was the first to speak.

“Who has told you anything about
Harleigh
Daly,
father?”

“Many have spoken.”

“Does he get back his good health again?”

“I hear that. When the warm days come, to New York City he is going. So says
Guy Barrington. What has Mistress Gordon told thee? For to see her I know thou
goes.”

“Twice only have I been. I heard not of New York City.”

“But that is certain. He will go, and what then? Thee he will quite forget,
and never more will thou see or hear tell of him.”

“That I believe not. In the cold winter one would have said of these
flowers, “They come no more.” But the winter goes away, and then here they are.
Harleigh
has been in the dead valley. Sometimes I
thought, he will come back to me no more. But now I am sure I shall see him
again.”

Joris
turned sadly away.
That night he did not speak to her more. But he had the persistence which is
usually associated with slow natures. He could not despair. He felt that he
must go steadily on trying to move Charlotte to what he really believed was her
highest interest. And he permitted nothing to discourage him for very long. Guy
Barrington was also a prudent man. He had no intention in his wooing to make
haste and lose speed. As to Charlotte's love troubles, he had not been left in
ignorance of them. A great many people had given him such information as would
enable him to keep his own heart from the wiles of the siren. He had also a
wide knowledge of books and life, and in the light of this knowledge he thought
that he could understand her. But the conclusion that he deliberately came to
was, that Charlotte could not be understood.

Amid all these different elements, political, social,
and domestic, Nature kept her own even, unvarying course. The gardens grew
every day fairer, the air more soft and balmy, and the sunshine warmer and more
cherishing. Charlotte was not unhappy. As
Harleigh
grew stronger, he spent his hours in writing long letters to Charlotte. He told
her every trivial event, he commented on all she told him. And her letters
revealed to him a soul so pure, so true, so loving, that he vowed “he fell in
love with her afresh every day of his life.” Charlotte's communications reached
her lover readily by the ordinary post;
Harleigh's
had to be sent through Mistress Gordon. The happy medium was found in the
mantua-maker, Miss Pitt. Mistress Gordon was her most profitable customer, and
Charlotte went there for needles and threads and such small wares as are
constantly needed in a household. And whenever she did so, Miss Pitt was sure
to remark, in an after-thought kind of way, “Oh, I had nearly forgotten, miss!
Here is a small parcel that Mistress Gordon desired me to present to you.”

One exquisite morning in May, Charlotte stood at an
open window looking over the garden and the river, and the green hills and
meadows across the stream. Her heart was full of hope.
Harleigh's
recovery was so far advanced that he had taken several rides in the middle of
the day. Always he had passed the Morgan's house, and always Charlotte had been
waiting to rain down upon his lifted face the influence of her most bewitching
beauty and her
tenderest
smiles. She was thinking of
the last of these events,—of
Harleigh's
rapid
exhibition of a long stemmed red rose, and the singular and emphatic wave which
he gave it towards the house His whole air and attitude had expressed delight
and hope.