Hearts Afire Read online

  “It is thy punishment,” said her mother, “bear it bravely and patiently. In a little while, it will be forgot.” But the weeks went on, and the wounded men slowly fought death away from their pillows, and Charlotte did not recover the place in social estimation which she had lost through the ungovernable tempers of her lovers. For, alas, there are few social pleasures that have so much vital power as that of exploring the faults of others, and comparing them with our own virtues!

  ROAD TO RECOVERY.

  But nothing ill lasts forever; and in three months Sir Edward was in the law office again, wan and worn with fever and suffering, and wearing his sword arm in a sling, but still decidedly world-like and life-like. It was characteristic of Sir Edward that few, even of his intimates, cared to talk of the duel to him, to make any observations on his absence, or any inquiries about his health. But it was evident that public opinion was in a large measure with him. Elder Van Heemskirk remarked opinion with a little astonishment and dissent. He could not find in his heart any excuse for either Sir Edward or Harleigh; and, when the elder enlarged with some acerbity upon the requirements of honor among men, Joris offended him by replying,—

  “Well, then, Elder, little I think of that “honor” which runs not with the laws of God and country.”

  “Let me tell you, Joris, the voice of the people is the voice of truth, in a measure; and you may see with your own eyes that it more than acquits Sir Edward of wrong-doing. Joris! Would you punish a fair sword-fight with the hangman?”

  “A better way there is. In the stocks I would stand these men of honor, who of their own feelings think more than of the law of God. A very quick end that punishment would put to a custom wicked and absurd.”

  “Well, Joris, we'll have no quarrel anent the question. You are a pillar, and have practical ideas of things in general. Honor is a virtue that cannot be put in the Decalogue, like idolatry and murder and theft.”

  “If right was Sir Edward, if wrong was Harleigh, honor punished both. A very foolish law is honor, I think.”

  “Here comes Sir Edward, and we'll let the talk fall to the ground. There are wiser men than either you or I on both sides.”

  Joris nodded gravely, and turned to welcome the young man. More than ever he liked the idea of the prearranged marriage; for, apart from moral and prudential reasons. It was indeed the best thing to fully restore her to the social esteem of her own people; for by making her his wife, Sir Edward would most emphatically exonerate her from all blame in the quarrel. Just this far, and no farther, had Sir Edward's three months' suffering aided his suit,— Sir Edward had now the full approval of Joris, backed by the weight of this social justification.

  But, in spite of these advantages, he was really much farther away from Charlotte. The three months had been full of mental suffering to her, and she blamed Sir Edward entirely for it. She had heard from Guy Barrington the story of the challenge and the fight; heard how patiently Harleigh had parried Sir Edward's attack rather than return it, until Sir Edward had so passionately refused any satisfaction less than his life; heard, also, how even at the point of death, fainting and falling, Harleigh had tried to protect her ribbon at his breast. She never wearied of talking with Guy Barrington on the subject; she thought of it all day, dreamed of it all night.

  But for some weeks after the duel she could not bear to leave the house. It was only after both men were known to be recovering, that she ventured to kirk; and her experience there was not one which tempted her to try the streets and the stores. However, no interest is a living interest in a community but politics; and these probably retain their power because change is their element. People eventually got weary to death of Sir Edward and Harleigh and Charlotte Morgan. The subject had been discussed in every possible light; and, when it was known that neither of the men was going to die, gossipers felt as if they had been somewhat defrauded, and the topic lost every touch of speculation.

  It was during this time of the hushed gossip that Charlotte said one morning, at breakfast, “mother wait one minute for me. I am going to do an errand or two in town.

  “It is a bad time, Charlotte, you have chosen,” said Lysbet Morgan. “Full of wagging tongues are the streets filled, whom it would be a great pleasure for them to see you. The gossipers I hate,—bullying curs, every one of them!”

  “Well, I know that you hate the gossipers, mother. You say so every hour.”

  “That is so, Charlotte.”

  Lysbet Morgan looked annoyed. Joris rose, and said, “Come then, Charlotte, thou shalt go with me.”

  His voice was so tender that Charlotte felt an unusual happiness and exultation; and she was also young enough to be glad to see the familiar streets again, and to feel the pulse of their vivid life make her heart beat quicker.

  At Universal Store, Father left her. She had felt so free and unremarked, that she said, “Wait not for me, Father. By myself I will go home.

  So, after selecting the goods her mother needed at the Universal Store, Charlotte was going up Pearl Street, when she heard herself called in a familiar and urgent voice. At the same moment a door was flung open; and Mistress Gordon, running down the few steps, put her hand upon the girl's shoulder.

  “Oh, my dear, this is a piece of good fortune past belief! Come into my lodgings. Oh, indeed you shall! I will have no excuse. Surely you owe me some reward after the pangs we have suffered for you.”

  She was leading Charlotte into the house as she spoke; and Charlotte had not the will, and therefore not the power, to oppose her. She placed the girl by her side on the sofa; she took her hands, and, with a genuine grief and love, told her all that “Harleigh Daly” had suffered and was still suffering for her sake.

  “It was the most unprovoked challenge, my dear; and Sir Edward behaved like a savage, I assure you. When Harleigh was bleeding from half a dozen wounds, a gentleman would have been satisfied, and accepted the mediation of the seconds; but Sir Edward, in his blind passion, broke the code to pieces. A man who can do nothing but be in a rage is a ridiculous and offensive animal. Have you seen him since his recovery? For I hear that he has crawled out of his bed again.”

  “Him I have not seen.”

  “Gracious powers, Charlotte! That all I can say.”

  Then Charlotte covered her face, and sobbed with a hopelessness and abandon that equally fretted Mistress Gordon. Now, what are you crying for, child?”

  “If I could only see Harleigh,—only see him for one moment!”

  “That is exactly what I am going to propose. He will get better when he has seen you. I will call a coach, and we will go at once.”

  “Alas! Go I dare not. My father and my mother!”

  “And Harleigh,—what of Harleigh, poor Harleigh, who is dying for you?” Mistress Gordon went to the door, and gave the order for a coach. “Your lover, Charlotte. Child, have you no heart? Shall I tell Harleigh you would not come with me?”

  “Be not so cruel to me. Say not you have seen me at all, why need you say?”

  “Oh! Indeed, Charlotte, do not imagine yourself the only person who values the truth. Harleigh always asks me, “Have you seen her?” Tis my honor to be truthful, and I am always swayed by my inclination. I shall feel it to be my duty to inform him how indifferent you are. Charlotte, put on your bonnet again. Here also are my veil and cloak. No one will perceive that it is you. It is the part of humanity, I assure you. Do so much for a poor soul who is at the grave's mouth.”

  “My father, I promised him”—

  “O child! Have a penny worth of common feeling about you. The man is dying for your sake. If he were your enemy, instead of your true lover, you might pity him so much. Do you not wish to see Harleigh?”

  “My life for his life I would give.”

  “Words, words, my dear. It is not your life he wants. He asks only ten minutes of your time. And if you desire to see him, give yourself the pleasure. There is nothing more silly than to be too wise to be happy.”

  While thus
alternately urging and persuading Charlotte, the coach came, the disguise was assumed, and the two drove rapidly to the “King's Arms.” Harleigh was lying upon a couch which had been drawn close to the window. But in order to secure as much quiet as possible, he had been placed in one of the rooms at the rear of the tavern,—a large, airy room, looking into the beautiful garden which stretched away backward. He had been in extremity. He was yet too weak to stand, too weak to endure long the strain of company or books or papers.

  He heard Mistress Gordon's voice and footfall, and felt, as he always did, a vague pleasure in her coming. Whatever of life came into his chamber of suffering came through her. She brought him daily such intelligences as she thought conducive to his recovery; and it must be acknowledged that it was not always her “humor to be truthful.” For Harleigh had so craved news of Charlotte, that she believed he would die wanting it.

  Her reports had been ingenious and diversified. “She had seen Charlotte at one of the windows,—the very picture of distraction.” “She had been told that Charlotte was breaking her heart about him;” also, “that Sir Edward and elder Van Heemskirk had quarreled because Charlotte had refused to see him, and the elder blamed Joris Morgan for not compelling her obedience.” Whenever Harleigh had been unusually depressed or unusually nervous, Mistress Gordon had always had some such comforting fiction ready. Now, here was the real Charlotte. Her very presence, her smiles, her tears, her words, would be a consolation so far beyond all hope, that the girl by her side seemed a kind of miracle to her.

  She was far more than a miracle to Harleigh. As the door opened, he slowly turned his head. When he saw who was really there, he uttered a low cry of joy,—a cry pitiful in its shrill weakness. In a moment Charlotte was close to his side. This was no time for coyness, and she was too tender and true a woman to feel or to affect it. She kissed his hands and face, and whispered on his lips the sweetest words of love and fidelity. Harleigh was in a rapture. His joyful soul made his pale face luminous. He lay still, speechless, motionless, watching and listening to her.

  Mistress Gordon had removed Charlotte's veil and cloak, and considerately withdrawn to a mirror at the extremity of the room, where she appeared to be altogether occupied with her own ringlets. But, indeed, it was with Charlotte and Harleigh one of those supreme hours when love conquers every other feeling. Before the whole world they would have avowed their affection, their pity, and their truth.

  Harleigh could speak little, but there was no need of speech. Had he not nearly died for her? Was not his very helplessness a plea beyond the power of words? She had only to look at the white shadow of humanity holding her hand, and remember the gay, gallant, handsome young man who had wooed her under the blue skies to feel that all the love of her life was too little to repay his devotion. And so quickly, so quickly, went the happy moments! Ere Charlotte had half said, “I love thee,” Mistress Gordon reminded her that it was near the noon; “and I have an excellent plan,” she continued; “you can leave my veil and cloak in the coach, and I will leave you at the first convenient place near your home. At the turn of the road, one sees nobody but your excellent father, or perhaps Elder Van Heemskirk, all of whom we may avoid, if you will but consider the time.”

  “Then we must part, my Charlotte, for a little. When will you come again?”

  This was a painful question, because Charlotte felt, that, however she might excuse herself for the unforeseen stress of pity that all unaware had hurried her into this interview, she knew she could not find the same apology for one deliberate and prearranged.

  “Only once more,” Harleigh pleaded. “I have, my Charlotte, so many things to say to you. In my joy, I forgot all. Come but once more.”

  “Two days hence I will come again. Then no more.”

  He smiled at her, and put out his hands; and she knelt again by his side, and kissed her “farewell” on his lips. And, as she put on again her cloak and veil, he drew a small volume towards him, and with trembling hands tore out of it a scrap of paper, and gave it to her.

  Under the lilac hedge that night she read it, read it over and over,—the bit of paper made almost warm and sentient by his tender petition to his beloved,—

  “When you are in company with that other man, behave as if you were absent; but continue to love me by day and by night; want me, dream of me, expect me, think of me, wish for me, delight in me, be wholly with me; in short, be my very soul, as I am yours.”

  “Let determined things to destiny

  Hold unbewailed their way.”

  FOR THE SHAME.

  If Charlotte had lived at this day, she would probably have spent her time between her promise and its fulfillment in self-analysis and introspective reasoning with her own conscience. But the women of a century ago were not tossed about with winds of various opinions, or made foolishly subtle by arguments about principles which ought never to be associated with dissent. A few strong, plain dictates had been set before Charlotte as the law of her daily life; and she knew, beyond all controversy, when she disobeyed them.

  In her own heart, she called the sin she had determined to commit by its most unequivocal name. “I shall make happy Harleigh; but my father I shall deceive and disobey, and against my own soul there will be the lie.” This was the position she admitted, but every woman is Eve in some hours of her life. The law of truth and wisdom may be in her ears, but the apple of delight hangs within her reach, and, with a full understanding of the consequences of disobedience, she takes the forbidden pleasure. And if the vocal, positive command of Divinity was unheeded by the first woman, mere mortal parents surely ought not to wonder that their commands, though dictated by truest love and clearest wisdom, are often lightly held, or even impotent against the voice of some charmer, pleading personal pleasure against duty, and self-will against the law infinitely higher and purer.

  There are women who prefer secrecy to honesty, and sin to truthfulness; but Charlotte was not one of them. If it had been possible to see her lover honorably, she would have much preferred it. She was totally destitute of that contemptible sentimentality which would rather invent difficulties in a love-affair than not have them, but she knew well the storm of reproach and disapproval which would answer any such request; and her thoughts were all bent toward devising some plan which would enable her to leave home early on that morning which she had promised her lover.

  But all her little arrangements failed; and it was almost at the last hour of the evening previous, that circumstances offered her a reasonable excuse. It came through Joris Morgan, who returned home later than usual, bringing with him a great many patterns of damask and figured cloth and stamped leather. At once he announced his intention of staying at home the next morning in order to have Lysbet's aid in selecting the coverings for their new chairs, and counting up their cost. He had taken the strips out of his pocket with an air of importance and complaisance; and Charlotte, glancing from them to her mother, thought she perceived a fleeting shadow of a feeling very much akin to her own contempt of the man's pronounced self-satisfaction. So when supper was over, and the house duties done, she determined to speak to her mother.

  “Let me go away in the morning. Father dotting about the chairs I cannot bear. Listen, how he will talk: 'See here, Charlotte. A fine piece is this; ten shillings and sixpence the yard, and good enough for the governor's house. But I am a man of some substance,—and fine chairs I will have' Mother, you know how it will be. Tomorrow I cannot bear him. Very near quarreling have we been for a week.”

  “I know, Charlotte, I know. Leave, then, and go first to the “Universal Store” of Lady Denham, and ask her if the new fashions will arrive from London this month. I heard also that Mary Blankaart has lost a silk purse, and in it five gold pieces, and some half and quarter silver. Ask kindly for her, and about the money; and so the morning could be passed. And look now, Charlotte, peace is the best thing for this house.”

  “That will make me glad.”

  “Surly it shall
.”

  “My mother, sad and troubled are thy looks. What is thy sorrow?”

  “For thee my heart aches often,—mine and thy good father's, too. Dost thou not suffer? Can thy mother be blind? Nothing hast thou eaten lately. Father says thou art restless all the night long. Thou art so changed then, that were ever such a happy little one. Once thou did love me, Charlotte.”

  “Mother, still I love thee!”

  “But what of the young man, Harleigh Daly?”

  “Never can I cease to love him. See, now, the love I give him is his love. It never was thine. For him I brought it into the world. None of thy love have I given to him. My mother, thee I would not rob for the whole world; not I!”

  “For all that, Charlotte, hard is the mother's lot. The dear child I nursed on my breast, they go here and they go there, with this strange one and that strange one. Last night, ere to our sleep we went, thy father read to me some words of a book they are true words. Every good mother has said them, at the grave or at the bridal, “we shall lose our daughters!'“

  The next morning was one of perfect beauty, and Charlotte awoke with a feeling of joyful expectation. She dressed beautifully her pale brown hair; and her intended visit to Mary Blankaart gave her an excuse for wearing her India silk,—the pretty dress Harleigh had seen her first in, the dress he had so often admired. Her appearance caused some remarks, and with much of her old gayety Charlotte walked between her father and mother away from home.

  She paid a very short visit to the mantua-maker, and then went to Mistress Gordon's. There was less effusion in that lady's manner than at her last interview with Charlotte. She had a little spasm of jealousy; she had some doubts about Charlotte's deserts; she wondered whether Harleigh really adored the girl with the fervour he affected, or whether he had determined, at all sacrifices, to prevent her marriage with Sir Edward Semple. Charlotte had never before seen her so quiet and so cool; and a feeling of shame sprang up in the girl's heart. “Perhaps she was going to do something not exactly proper in Mistress Gordon's eyes, and in advance that lady was making her sensible of her contempt.”