Hearts Afire (14 page)

“
The scandal will fall on the person who makes
it,”he
said severely, getting up, to cut short the conversation.

“
He went away. In the drawing-room I heard him talking quietly with
mother, as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t left me broken-hearted.”

“
My
Harleigh
, my darling
Harleigh
,
my constant thought —it is then decided: we must run. We must fly. Here, like
this, I should die. Anything will be better than this house; it is a prison.
Anything is better than the galleys.

“
I know that what I propose is very grave. According to the common
judgment of mankind a young girl who elopes is everlastingly dishonored. In
spite of the sanctity of marriage, suspicion never leaves her. I know that I am
throwing away a great deal for a dream of love. But that is my strange and
cruel destiny—the destiny which has given me a husband and taken away my youth;
given me a heart eager for affection and cut me off from all affection; given
me the dearest and at the same time the least loving father.”

“
Who will weep for me here? No one. Whose hands will be stretched out to
call me back? No one’s. What memories will I carry away with me? None. I am
lonely and misunderstood; I am flying from a heart of ice and snow to the warm
sunlight of love. You are the sun, you are my love. Don’t think I’ll of me. I
am not like other girls. I am a poor soul, seeking a home, a family, a nest. I
will be your wife, your sweetheart, your servant; I love you. A life passed in
the atmosphere of your love will be an absolution for this fault that I am
committing. I know, the world will not forgive me. But I despise people who
can’t understand one's sacrificing everything for love. And those who do not
understand it will pity me. I shall care for nothing but your love; you will
forgive me because you love me.

“
So, it is decided. On the third day after you receive this letter—that
is, on Friday—leave your house as if you were going for a walk, and take a
carriage to the garden. I shan’t be in the garden—that might arouse suspicions;
but I shall be in the street across from the garden, awaiting your arrival.
Find me there—come as swiftly as you can. We will meet there, and then we will
leave for the big city, and sail for the East from there. I have some money. My
entire savings for the past two years. Afterward— when this money is
spent—well, we will work for our living.

“
Remember, remember: Friday, at noon, leave your house. At half past one
come to me at the garden. Don’t forget, for mercy’s sake. If you shouldn’t
arrive at the right time, what would become of me, alone, at the garden, in
anguish, devoured by anxiety?

“
My sweetest love, this is the last letter you will receive from me. Why,
as I write these words, does a feeling of sorrow come upon me, making me bow my
head? The word last is always sad, whenever it is spoken. Will you always love
me, even though far from your country, even though poor, even though unhappy?
You won’t accuse me of having wronged you? You will protect me and sustain me
with your love? You will be kind, honest,
loyal
. You
will be all that I care for in the world.

“
This is my last letter, it is true, but soon now our wondrous future will
begin—our life together. Remember, remember where I shall wait for you.

“
Charlotte,”

Alone in his little house,
Harleigh
Daly read
Charlotte’s letter twice through, slowly, slowly. Then his head fell upon his
breast. He felt that he was lost, ruined; that Charlotte was lost and ruined.

At that late morning hour the “Universal Store” of Lady Denham, white with
stucco, rich with gold ornamentation, with softly carved marbles and old
pictures, was almost empty. A few pious old women moved vaguely here and there,
wrapped in black shawls; a few strained their eyes toward the latest fashions.
Charlotte and her mother, were standing in the middle of the store, with their
eyes bent on the latest hats from Paris.
Lysbet
Morgan had a worn, sunken face that must have once been delicately pretty, with
that sort of prettiness which fades before fifty. Charlotte wore a dark serge
frock, with a jacket in the English fashion; and her brown hair was held in
place by a comb of yellow tortoise-shell. The warm pallor of her face was
broken by no trace of color. Every now and then she bit her lips nervously.

Presently the young girl rose.

“I am going to outside for a moment,” Charlotte said, walking toward the
door.

Lysbet
Morgan did not seek to detain her. With a
light step she crossed the store and made it to front door without incident.

Charlotte stole swiftly out of the store into the street, where she hailed a
carriage, and bade the good-man drive to
Kalchhook
Hill garden. She drew down the blinds of the carriage windows, and there in the
darkness she could scarcely suppress a cry of mingled joy and pain to find
herself at last alone and free.

The carriage rolled on and on; it was like the movement of a dream. The only
thing she could think of was this beautiful and terrible idea, that she,
Charlotte, had abandoned forever her home and her family, carrying away only so
much of her savings as the purse in her pocket could hold, to throw herself
into the arms of
Harleigh
Daly. No feeling of fear
held her back. Her entire past life was ended, she could never take it up
again; it was over, it was over.

In that sort of somnambulism which accompanies a decisive action, she was as
exact and rigid in everything she had to do as an automaton. At the street by
the garden she paid her driver, and mechanically bid him a good day.

She descended from the carriage when the driver tipped his hat, and followed
the street toward the meeting place.

She went on, looking neither to right nor left, up the narrow, dusty lane
that leads from the street to the garden’s gate. Neither hide nor hair noticed
her; the solitary young woman, with the warm, pale face, and the great
brown-black eyes that gazed straight forward, without interest in what they
saw, the eyes of a soul consumed by an emotion. When she arrived at the meeting
place, she ensconced herself on a bench near the garden, and looked out upon
the path she had followed, as if waiting for somebody, or as if wishing to turn
back.

And Charlotte was praying for the safe coming of
Harleigh
.
If she could but see him, if she could but hear his voice, all her doubts, all
her pains, would fly away.

“I adore him! I adore him! “She thought, and tried thus to find strength
with which to combat her conscience. Her heart was filled with a single wish—to
see
Harleigh
; he would give her strength; he was the
reason for her life—he and love. She looked at her little child’s watch, the
only jewel she had brought away; she had a long time still to wait before half
past one.

Charlotte was strangely fatigued; she had exhausted her forces in making the
journey hither; the tumult of emotion she had gone through had prostrated her.
Now she felt utterly alone and abandoned —a poor, unfortunate creature bearing
through this dead city a heavy burden of solitude and weariness: and when,
after a long rest, she got up to stretch herself a great sigh broke from her
lips.

Suddenly a feeling of some watching her swept across her body. She looked
up, and saw
Harleigh
across the street, gazing down
on her with an infinite despairing tenderness.

Charlotte, unable to speak, ran toward the open garden gate. And a smile of
happiness, like a great light, shone from her eyes, and a warm color mantled
her cheeks.
Harleigh
had never seen her so beautiful.
In an ecstasy of joy, feeling all her doubts die within her, feeling all the
glory of her love spring to full life again, Charlotte could not understand why
there was an expression of sorrow on
Harleigh’s
face.

“Do you love me—a great deal?”

“A great deal” Whispered
Harleigh
.

“You will always care for me?”

“Always.”

It was like a sad, soft echo, but the girl did not notice that; a veil of
passion dimmed her perceptions. They walked on together, she close to him, so
happy that her feet scarcely touched the earth, enjoying this minute of intense
love with all the force of feeling that she possessed, with all the
self-surrender of which human nature is capable. They walked on through the
streets of the small town, without seeing, without looking. Only again and again
she said softly: “Tell me that you love me— tell me that you love me!”

Two or three times he had answered simply, “Yes,” then he was silent.

Suddenly, Charlotte, not hearing his answer, stood still, and taking his
arms in her hands, looked deep into his honest eyes, and asked, “ What is the
matter ? “

Her voice trembled. He lowered his eyes.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Why are you so sad?”

“I am not sad,”
Harleigh
answered with an effort.

“You’re telling the truth?”

“I’m telling the truth.”

“Swear that you love me.”

“Do you need me to swear it?” He exclaimed with such sincerity and such pain
that she was convinced, perceiving the sincerity, but not the pain.

But she was still troubled; there was still a bitterness in her joy.

“Let us go away, let us go away,” Charlotte said impatiently.

“We have time; we’ve plenty of time.”

“Let us go away! I don’t want to stay here any longer. I beg of you, let us
go.”

He obeyed her passively and was silent. They entered the inn on their way to
the carriage station. Charlotte was frightened; she didn’t care to talk of love
to
Harleigh
before such witnesses, but she looked at
him with fond, supplicating eyes. The two lovers were near the window, looking
through the glass at the road that leads to the carriage station; and Charlotte
was holding on to
Harleigh’s
arm, and he, confused,
nervous, asked her if she would not like to dine, taking refuge from his
embarrassment in the commonplace. No; she did not wish to dine, she wasn’t
hungry. Afterwards, by-and-by.” And her voice failed her as she looked at the
two diners sitting close to them.

“I wish” she began, whispering into
Harleigh’s
ear.

“What do you wish?”

“Take me away somewhere else, where I can say something to you.”

He hesitated; she blushed; then he left the room to speak to the landlord;
returning presently, “Come,” he said.

“Where are we going?”

“Upstairs.”

“Why upstairs?”

“You will see.”

They went upstairs to the second floor, where the waiter who conducted them
opened the door of an apartment consisting of a bedroom and sitting-room—a big
bedroom, a tiny sitting-room—both having balconies that looked off over the
town, and there the waiter left them alone.

Each of them was pale, silent, confused.

She looked round. The sitting-room was vulgarly furnished with a green sofa,
two green easy-chairs, a center-table covered with a nut-colored jute
tablecloth, and a marble console. The thought of the many strangers who had
inhabited it inspired her with a sort of shame. Then she glanced into the
bedroom. It was very large, with two beds at the farther end, a dressing-table,
a sofa, and a wardrobe. These pieces of furniture seemed lost in the vast
bare-looking chamber. It gave her a shudder merely to look into it; and yet
again she blushed.

She raised her eyes to
Harleighs
, and she noticed
anew that he was gazing at her with an expression of great sadness.

“What is the matter?” Charlotte asked.

He did not answer. He sat down and buried his face in his hands.

“Tell me what it is,” she insisted, trembling with anger and anguish.

He remained silent. Perhaps he was weeping behind his hands.

“If you don’t tell me what it is, I’ll go back home,” she said.

He did not speak.

“You despise me because I have left my home.’'

“No, Charlotte,”
Harleigh
murmured.

“You think I’m dreadful—you think of me as an abandoned creature.”

“No, dear one—no.”

“Perhaps—you—love another woman.”

“You can’t think that.”

“Perhaps — you have—another tie—without love.”

“None; I am bound to no one.”

“You have promised yourself to no one?” “To no one.”

“Then why are you so sad? Why do you weep? Why do you tremble? It is I who
ought to weep and tremble, and yet I don’t weep unless to see you weep. Your
weeping breaks my heart, makes me desperate.”

“Charlotte, listen to me. By the memory of what is good I implore you to
listen, to understand. I am miserable because of you, on your account— in
thinking of what I have allowed you to do, of how you are throwing away your
future, of the unhappiness that awaits you; without a home, without a name,
persecuted by your family.”

“If you loved me, you wouldn’t think these things; you wouldn’t say them.”

“I have always said them, Charlotte; I have always repeated them. I have
ruined you. For three days I have been in an agony of remorse; it is the same
today. Though you are the love of my life, I must say it to you. Today I can’t
forgive myself; tomorrow you will be unable to forgive me. Oh, my love! I am a
man of good upbringing, I am a man of morals; and yet I have been weak enough
to allow you and me to commit this sin, this fault.”

Speaking thus, with an infinite earnestness, all the honesty of his noble
soul showed itself, a soul bowed down by remorse. She looked at him and
listened to him with stupefaction, amazed at this spectacle of a rectitude, of
a virtue that was greater than love, for she believed only in love.