Hearts Afire (12 page)

As thus she happily mused, someone called her mother
from the front hall. On fine mornings it was customary to leave the door
standing open; and the visitor advanced to the foot of the stairs, and called
once more, “
Lysbet
Morgan! Is there nobody in to bid
me welcome?” Then Charlotte knew it was Madam Van
Heemskirk
;
and she ran to her mother's room, and begged her to go down and receive the
caller. For in these days Charlotte dreaded Madam Van
Heemskirk
a little. Very naturally, the mother blamed her for Sir Edward's suffering and
loss of time and prestige; and she found it hard to forgive also her positive
rejection of his suit. For her sake, she herself had been made to suffer
mortification and disappointment. She had lost her friends in a way which
deprived her of all the fruits of her kindness. The Gordon’s thought Sir Edward
had transgressed all the laws of hospitality. The Van
Heemskirks
had a similar charge to make. And it provoked Madam Van
Heemskirk
that Mistress Gordon continued her friendship with Charlotte. Everyone else
blamed Charlotte altogether in the matter; Mistress Gordon had defied the use
and wont of society on such occasions, and thrown the whole blame on Sir
Edward. Somehow, in her secret heart, Madam Van
Heemskirk
.
“It was
Harleigh
Daly or Guy Barrington, either of
them before our Sir Edward;” and, though there was no apparent diminution of
friendship, Elder Van
Heemskirk
and his wife
frequently had a little private grumble at their own fireside.

And toward Sir Edward,
Joris
had also a secret
feeling of resentment. He had taken no pains to woo Charlotte until someone
else wanted her. It was universally conceded that he had been the first to draw
his sword, and thus indulge his own temper at the expense of Charlotte's good
name and happiness. Taking these faults as rudimentary ones,
Lysbet
could enlarge on them indefinitely; and
Joris
had undoubtedly been influenced by his wife's
opinions. So, below the smiles and kind words of a long friendship, there was
bitterness.

The clean linen, the stockings that required mending, lay upon the table.
Charlotte sat down to the task. Resolutely, but almost unconsciously, she put
her needle through and through. Her longing for
Harleigh
was pitiful; this little one, who a few months ago would have wept for a cut
finger, now silently battling with the longing agony that can come to a loving
woman. At first
Lysbet
tried to talk to her; but she
soon saw that the effort to answer was beyond Charlotte's power, and
conversation was abandoned. So for an hour, an hour of speechless sorrow, they
sat. The tick of the clock, the purr of the cat, the snap of a breaking thread,
alone relieved the tension of silence in which this act of suffering was
completed. Its atmosphere was becoming intolerable, like that of a nightmare;
and
Lysbet
was feeling that she must speak and move,
and so dissipate it, when there was a loud knock at the front door.

Charlotte trembled all over. “Today I cannot bear it, mother. No one can I
see. I will go upstairs.”

Ere the words were finished, Mistress Gordon's voice was audible. She came
into the room laughing, with the smell of fresh violets and the feeling of the
brisk wind around her. “Dear Madam,” she cried, “I entreat you for a favor. I
am going to take the air this afternoon: be so good as to let Charlotte come
with me. For I must tell you that the colonel has orders for Boston, and I may
see my charming friend no more after today.”

“Charlotte, what say you? Will you go?”

“Please,
my mother
.”

“Make great haste, then.” For
Lysbet
was pleased
with the offer, and fearful that
Joris
might arrive,
and refuse to let his daughter accept it. She hoped that Charlotte would
receive some comforting message.

“Stay not long,” she whispered, “for your father's sake. There is no good,
more trouble to give him.”

“Well, my dear, you look like a ghost. Have you not one smile for a woman so
completely in your interest? When I promised
Harleigh
this morning that I would be
sure
to get word to you, I was at my wits
end to discover a way. But, when I am between the horns of a dilemma, I find it
the best plan to take the bull by the horns. Hence, I have made you a visit
which seems to have quite nonplussed you and your good mother.”

“What did he say?”

“He has said, he will meet you tonight at Midnight at the garden where Sir
Edward challenged him. Do not fail
Harleigh
: he is
risking all to see you.”

“I will be there.”

“La! What are you crying for, child? Poor girl! What are you crying for?
Harleigh
, the scamp? He is not worthy of such pure tears;
and yet, believe me, he loves you to distraction.”

MOTIONLESS under the white coverlet of her bed, Charlotte appeared to have
been sleeping soundly for the past two hours. She dared not move, she dared not
even sigh; and all her life was in her gaze, trying to penetrate the secret of
the dusk—trying to hear whether really her parents were asleep. It was a cool
summer night, and as the hour advanced the room became colder and colder; but
Charlotte did not feel it.

The moment the clock chimed a surge had leapt from her heart to her brain,
diffusing itself through all her members, scalding her veins, scorching her
flesh, quickening the beating of her pulses. As in the height of fever, she
felt herself burning up; her tongue was dry, her head was hot; and the cool air
that entered her lungs could not quench the fire in her, could not subdue the
tumultuous irruption of her young blood.

Often, to relieve herself, she had longed to cry out, to moan; but the fear
of waking her parents held her silent. It was not, however, so much from the
great heat throbbing at her temples that she suffered, as from her inability to
know for certain whether her parents was asleep.

Sometimes she thought of moving noisily, so that her bed should creak; then
if mother were awake, she would come in, and thus Charlotte could make sure
they were asleep. But the fear of thereby still further lengthening this time
of waiting, kept her from letting the thought become an action. She lay as
motionless as if her limbs were bound down by a thousand chains.

She had lost all track of time, too; she had forgotten to count the last
strokes of the clock— the clock that could be heard from the sitting-room
adjoining. It seemed to her that she had been lying like this for years,
burning with this maddening fire.

And then the horrible thought crossed her mind—What if the hour had passed?
Perhaps it had passed without her noticing it; she who had waited for it so
impatiently had let it escape.

But no. Presently, deadened by the distance and the doors closed between,
she heard the clock ring out.

The hour had come.

Thereupon, with an infinite caution, born of infinite fear, slowly,
trembling, holding her breath at every sound, pausing, starting back, going on,
she sat up in bed, and at last slipped out of it.

That vague spot of whiteness in the distance, where her parents lay, still
fascinated her; she kept her head turned in its direction, while with her hands
she felt for her shoes and stockings and clothes. They were all there, placed
conveniently near; but every little difficulty she had to overcome in dressing,
so as not to make the slightest noise, represented a world of precautions, of
pauses, and of paralyzing fears.

When at last she had got on her frock of white serge, which shone out in the
darkness, “Perhaps” mother sees me,” she thought.

But she had made ready a big heavy black shawl, and in this she now wrapped
herself from head to foot, and the whiteness of her frock was hidden.

Then, having accomplished the miracle of dressing herself, she stood still
at her bedside; she had not dared to take a step as yet, sure that by doing so
she would wake all.

“A little strength—please send me a little strength,” she mumbled inwardly
to self.

Then she set forth stealthily across the room. In the middle of it, seized
by a sudden audacious impulse, she called her mother’s name, in a whisper,
“mother, mother” listening intensely.

No answer. She went on, past her parent’s open door, through the
sitting-room, the drawing-room, feeling her way amidst the chairs and tables.
She struck her shoulder against the frame of the door between the sitting-room
and the drawing room, and halted for a moment, with a beating heart.

“Stay
calm! Stay calm
! “She murmured in an agony of terror.

When she reached the dining-room, it seemed to her that she must have
traversed a hundred separate chambers, a hundred entire houses, and an endless
chain of chambers.

At last she opened the front door that gave upon the porch, and ran out into
the night, the cold, the blackness. She crossed the lawn, and being made
frightened by the gathering of the night shadows, she turned quickly, and
taking the very road up which
Harleigh
had come the
night Sir Edward challenged him, she entered the garden by a small gate at its
foot, which was intended for the gardener's use. The lilacs had not much
foliage, but in the dim light her dark, slim figure was indistinguishable
behind them. Longingly and anxiously she looked up and down the garden. A mist
was gathering over it; and there were no souls in sight except two felines
lying in the flower bed.

In the pettiest character there are unfathomable depths; and Charlotte's,
though yet undeveloped, was full of noble aspirations and singularly sensitive.
As she stood there alone, watching and waiting in the dim light, she had a
strange consciousness of some mysterious life ante-dating this life! And of a
long-forgotten voice filling the ear-chambers of that spiritual body which was
the celestial inhabitant of her natural body. “
Harleigh
,
Harleigh
,” she murmured; and she never doubted
but that he heard her.

All her senses were keenly on the alert. Suddenly there was the sound of
footsteps, and the measure was that of steady, powerful strokes. She turned her
face southward, and watched. Like a flash
Harleigh
shot out of the shadow a few feet away.

“Charlotte!”

It was but a whisper, but she heard it. He opened his arms, and she flew to
their shelter like a bird to her mate.

“My love, my love, my beautiful Charlotte! My true, good heart! Now, at last
we can speak face to face. I have come to you—come at all risks for you.

Covered by her black mantle, without speaking, Charlotte bent her head and
broke into sobs.

“What is it? What is wrong? “
Harleigh
asked,
trying to see her face.

Charlotte wept without answering.

“Don’t cry, don’t cry. Tell me what’s troubling you,” he murmured earnestly,
with a caress in his words and in his voice.

“Nothing, nothing. I was so frightened,” she stammered.

“Dearest, dearest, dearest!”
Harleigh
whispered.

“Oh, I ‘am a wicked creature—a poor wicked thing,” said she, with a desolate
gesture.

“I love you so,” said
Harleigh
, simply, in a low
voice.

“Oh, say that again,” she begged, ceasing to weep.

“I love you so, Charlotte.”

“I adore you—my soul, my darling.”

“If you love me, you must be calm.”

“I adore you, my dearest one.”

“Promise me that you won’t cry any more, then.”

“I adore you, I adore you, I adore you! “ Charlotte repeated, her voice
heavy with emotion.

Harleigh
did not speak. It seemed as if he could
find no words fit for responding to such a passion. A cold gust of wind swept
over them.

“Are you cold?” he asked.

“No: I feel fine” And Charlotte gave him her hand.

Her little hand, between those of
Harleigh
, was
indeed not cold; it was burning.

“That is love,” said she.

He lifted the hand gently to his lips, and kissed it lightly. And thereupon,
her eyes glowed in the darkness, like human stars of passion.

“My love is consuming me,” she went on, as if speaking to herself. “I can
feel nothing else; neither cold, nor night, nor danger—nothing. I can only feel
you.
I want nothing but your love. I only want to live near you
always—till death, and after death—always with you—always, always.”

“Ah me! “Sighed
Harleigh
, under his breath.

“What did you say?” she cried, eagerly.

“It was a sigh, dear one; a sigh over dream.”

“Don’t talk like that; don’t say that,” she exclaimed.

“Why shouldn’t I say it, Charlotte? The sweet dream that we have been
dreaming together—any day we may have to wake from it. They aren’t willing that
we should live together.”

“Who are—they?”

“He who can dispose of you as he wishes, your father.”

“Have you seen him?”

“Yes; today, I asked your father for your hand one last time.”

“What did father say?”

“He won’t consent.”

“Why not?”

“Because you have money, and I have none. Because you are noble, and I'm
not.”

“But I adore you,
Harleigh
.”

“That matters little to your father.”

“He’s a barbarous man.”

“He’s a man,” said
Harleigh
, shortly.

“But it’s an act of cruelty that he’s committing,” she cried, lifting her hands
towards heaven.

Harleigh
did not speak.

“What did you answer? What did you plead? Didn’t you tell him again that you
love me, and that I adore you, that I shall die if we are separated? Didn’t you
describe our despair to him?”