Hearts Afire Read online

  With this thought, she rose, and with burning cheeks said, “I will go home, madam. Now I feel that I am doing wrong. To write to Harleigh will be the best way.”

  “Pray don't be foolish, Charlotte. I am of a serious turn this morning, that is all. How pretty you are! And how vastly becoming your gown! But, indeed, I am going to ask you to change it. Yesterday at the “King's Arms,” I said my sister would arrive this morning with me; and I bespoke a little cotillon in Harleigh's rooms. In that dress you will be too familiar, my dear. See here, is not this the prettiest fashion? It is lately come over. So airy! So French! So all that!”

  It was a light-blue gown and petticoat of rich satin, sprigged with silver, and a manteau of dark-blue velvet trimmed with bands of delicate fur. The bonnet was not one which the present generation would call “lovely;” but, in its satin depths, Charlotte's fresh, sweet face looked like a rose. She hardly knew herself when the toilet was completed; and, during its progress, Mistress Gordon recovered all her animation and interest.

  Before they were ready, a coach was in waiting; and in a few minutes they stood together at Harleigh's door. There was a sound of voices within; and, when they entered, Charlotte saw, with a pang of disappointment, a fine, gallantly looking man by Harleigh's side. But Harleigh appeared to be in no way annoyed by his company. He was looking much better, and wore a chamber gown of maroon satin, with deep laces showing at the wrists and bosom. When Charlotte entered, he was amazed and charmed with her appearance. “Come near to me, my Charlotte,” he said; and as Mistress Gordon drew from her shoulders the mantle, and from her head the bonnet, and revealed more perfectly her beautiful person and dress, his love and admiration were beyond words.

  With an air that plainly said, “This is the maiden for whom I fought and have suffered: is she not worthy of my devotion?” he introduced her to his friend, Ewan Rawden. But, even as they spoke, Ewan joined Mistress Gordon, at a call from her; and Charlotte noticed that a door near which they stood was open, and that they went into the room to which it led, and that other voices then blended with theirs. But these things were as nothing. She was with her lover, alone for a moment with him; and Harleigh had never before seemed to her half so dear or half so fascinating.

  “My Charlotte,” he said, “I have one tormenting thought. Night and day it consumes me like a fever. I hear that Sir Edward Semple is well. Yesterday Ewan saw him; he was walking with your father. He will be visiting at your house very soon. He will see you; he will speak to you. You have such obliging manners, he may even clasp this hand, my hand. Heavens! I am but a man, and I find myself unable to endure the thought.”

  “In my heart, Harleigh, there is only room for you. Sir Edward I fear and dislike.”

  “They will make you marry him, my darling.”

  “No; that they can never do.”

  “But I suffer in the fear. I suffer a thousand deaths. If you were only my wife, Charlotte!”

  She blushed divinely. She was kneeling at his side; and she put her arms around his neck, and laid her face against his. “Only your wife I will be. That is what I desire also.”

  “Now, Charlotte? This minute, darling? Make me sure of the felicity you have promised.”

  “Oh, my love, my love!”

  “See how I tremble, Charlotte. Life scarcely cares to inhabit a body so weak. If you refuse me, I will let it go. If you refuse me, I shall know that in your heart you expect to marry Sir Edward,—the savage who has made me to suffer unspeakable agonies.”

  “Never will I marry him, Harleigh,—never, never. My word is true. You only I will marry.”

  The noon hour was long past, but she made no mention of it. The moment for parting had come; and, when it has, wise are those who delay it not. Harleigh fixed his eyes upon his love until Mistress Gordon had arranged again her bonnet and manteau; then, with a smile, he shut in their white portals the exquisite picture. He could let her go with a smile now, for he knew that Charlotte's absence was but a parted presence; knew that her better part remained with him, that her heart was never away, but ever with his forever.”

  The coach was waiting; and, without delay, Charlotte returned with Mistress Gordon to her lodgings. Both were silent on the journey. When a great event has taken place, only the shallow and unfeeling chatter about it. Charlotte's heart was full, even to solemnity; and Mistress Gordon, whose affectation of fashionable levity was in a large measure pretense, had a kind and sensible nature, and she watched the quiet girl by her side with decided approval. “She may not be in the mode, but she is neither silly nor heartless,” she decided; “and as for loving foolishly my poor, delightful Harleigh, why, any girl may be excused the folly.”

  Upon leaving the coach at Mistress Gordon's, Charlotte went to an inner room to resume her own dress. The India silk lay across a chair; and she took off, and folded with her accustomed neatness, the elegant suit she had worn. As she did so, she became sensible of a singular liking for it; and, when Mistress Gordon entered the room, she said to her, “Madam, very much I desire this suit: it shall be my wedding-gown. Will you save it for me? Someday I may wear it again, when Harleigh is well.”

  “Indeed, Charlotte, you shall have the gown. I shall be put it away for you.”

  “The time, madam? What is the hour?”

  “Indeed, I think it is much after four o'clock. Half an hour hence, you will have to bring out your excuses.

  “Her excuses” Charlotte had not suffered herself to consider. She could not bear to shadow the present with the future. She had, indeed, a happy faculty of leaving her emergencies to take care of themselves; and perhaps wiser people than Charlotte might, with advantage, trust less to their own planning and foresight, and more to that inscrutable power which we call chance, but which so often arranges favorably the events apparently very unfavorable. For, at the best, foresight has but probabilities to work with; but chance, whose ways we know not, very often contradicts all our bad prophecies, and untangles untoward events far beyond our best prudence or wisdom. And Charlotte was so happy. She really loved Harleigh; and on that solid vantage-ground she felt able to beat off trouble, and to defend her own and his rights.

  “So much better you look, Charlotte,” said Mother. “Where have you been all the day? And did you see Mary Blankaart? And the money, is it found yet?”

  The family were at the supper-table; and Joris looked kindly at his truant daughter, and motioned to the vacant chair at his side. She slipped into it, touching her father's cheek as she passed; and then she answered, “At Mary Blankaart's I was not at all, mother.”

  “Where, then?”

  “To Universal Store I went first, and with Mistress Gordon I have been all the day.”

  “Who sent you there, Charlotte?”

  “No one, mother. When I passed the house, my name I heard, and Mistress Gordon came out to me; and how could I refuse her? Much had we to talk of.”

  Lysbet Morgan saw her daughter's placid face, and heard her open confession, with the greatest amazement. She looked at Joris, and was just going to express her opinion, when Joris rose, pushed his chair aside, and said, come with thy father, Charlotte, and down the garden we will walk, and see if there are dahlias yet, and how grow the gold and the white chrysanthemums.”

  But all the time they were in the garden together, Joris never spoke of Mistress Gordon, nor of Charlotte's visit to her. About the flowers, and the restless swallows, and the bluebirds, who still lingered, silent and anxious, he talked.

  “Every one speaks so highly of Sir Edward,” said Charlotte; “so hard he tries to have many friends, and to be well spoken of.”

  “That is his way, Charlotte; every man has his way.”

  “And I like not the way of Sir Edward.”

  “In business, then, he has a good name, honest and prudent. He will make you a good husband.”

  But, though Joris said nothing to his daughter concerning her visit to Mistress Gordon, he talked long with Lysbet about it. “What
will be the end, thou may see by the child's face and air,” he said; “the shadow and the heaviness are gone. Like the old Charlotte she is tonight.”

  “And this afternoon comes here Sir Edward. Scarcely he believed me that Charlotte was out. Joris, what wilt thou do about the young man?”

  “His fair chance he is to have, Lysbet. That to the Elder Van Heemskirk is promised.”

  “The case now is altered. Sir Edward I like not. Little he thought of our child's good name. With his sword he wounded her most. No patience have I with the man. And his dark look thou should have seen when I said, “Charlotte is not at home.” Plainly his eyes said to me, “Thou art lying.”

  So the loving, anxious parents, in their ignorance, planned. Even then, accustomed in all their ways to move with caution, they saw no urgent need of interference with the regular and appointed events of life. A few weeks hence Sir Edward called again on Charlotte. His arm was still useless; his pallor and weakness so great as to win, even from Lysbet, that womanly pity which is often irrespective of desert. She brought him wine, she made him rest upon the sofa, and by her quiet air of sympathy bespoke for him a like indulgence from her daughter. Charlotte sat by her small wheel, unplaiting some flax; and Sir Edward thought her the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. He kept angrily asking himself why he had not perceived this rare loveliness before; why he had not made sure his claim ere rivals had disputed it with him. He did not understand that it was love which had called this softer, more exquisite beauty into existence. The tender light in the eyes; the flush upon the cheek; the lips, conscious of sweet words and sweeter kisses; the heart, beating to pure and loving thoughts,—in short, the loveliness of the soul, transfiguring the meaner loveliness of flesh and blood, Sir Edward had perceived and wondered at; but he had not that kind of love experience which divines the cause from the result.

  On the contrary, had Harleigh been watching Charlotte, he would have been certain that she was musing on her lover. He would have understood that bewitching languor, that dreaming silence, that tender air and light and color which was the physical atmosphere of a soul communing with its beloved; a soul touching things present only with its intelligence, but reaching out to the absent with intensity of every loving emotion.

  For some time the conversation was general. But no one's interest was in their words, and presently Lysbet Morgan rose and left the room. Her husband had said, “Sir Edward was to have some opportunities;” and the words of Joris were a law of love to Lysbet.

  Sir Edward was not slow to improve the favor. “Charlotte, I wish to speak to you. I am weak and ill. Will you come here beside me?”

  She rose slowly, and stood beside him; but, when he tried to take her hands, she clasped them behind her back.

  “So?” he asked; and the blood surged over his white face in a crimson tide that made him for a moment or two speechless. “Why not?”

  “Blood-stained are your hands. I will not take them.”

  The answer gave him a little comfort. It was, then, only a moral qualm. He had even no objection to such a keen sense of purity in her; and sooner or later she would forgive his action, or be made to see it with the eyes of the world in which he moved.

  “Charlotte, I am very sorry I had to guard my honor with my sword; and it was your love I was fighting for.”

  “My honor you cared not for, and with the sword I could not guard it. Of me cruel and false words have been said by everyone. On the streets I was ashamed to go.”

  “Your honor is my honor. They that speak ill of you, sweet Charlotte, speak ill of me. Your life is my life. O my precious one, my wife!”

  “Such words I will not listen to. Plainly now I tell you, your wife I will never be,—never, never, never!”

  “I will love you, Charlotte, beyond your dream of love. I will die rather than see you the wife of another man. For your bow of ribbon, only see what I have suffered.”

  “And, also, what have you made another to suffer?”

  “Oh, I wish that I had slain him!”

  “Not your fault is it that you did not murder him.”

  “An affair of honor is not murder, Charlotte.”

  “Honor!—Name not the word. From a dozen wounds your enemy was bleeding; to go on fighting a dying man was murder, not honor. Brave some call you: in my heart I say, “Sir Edward was a savage and a coward.”

  “Charlotte, I will not be angry with you.”

  “I wish that you should be angry with me. Because some day you will be very sorry for these foolish words, my dear love.”

  “Your dear love I am not.”

  “Tis true.”

  “My dear love, give me a drink of wine, I am faint.”

  His faint whispered words and deathlike countenance moved her to human pity. She rose for the wine, and as she did so, called her mother; but Sir Edward had at least the satisfaction of feeling that she had ministered to his weakness, and held the wine to his lips. From this time, he visited her constantly, unmindful of her frowns, deaf to all her unkind words, patient under the most pointed slights and neglect. And as most men rate an object according to the difficulty experienced in attaining it, Charlotte became every day more precious and desirable in Sir Edward's eyes.

  In the meantime, without being watched, Charlotte felt herself to be under a certain amount of restraint. If she proposed a walk into the city, mother or father was sure to have the same desire. She was not forbidden to visit Mistress Gordon, but events were so arranged as to make the visit almost impossible; and only once, during the month after seeing Harleigh, had she an interview with him. For even Harleigh's impatience had recognized the absolute necessity of circumspection. The landlord's suspicions had been awakened, and not very certainly allayed. “There must be no scandal about my house, Harleigh,” he said. “I merit something better from you;” and, after this injunction, it was very likely that Mistress Gordon's companions would be closely scrutinized. True, the “King's Arms” was the great rendezvous of the military and government officials, and the landlord himself subserviently loyal; but, also, Joris Morgan was not a man with whom any good citizen would like to quarrel. Personally he was much beloved, and socially he stood as representative of a class which held in their hands commercial and political power no one cared to oppose or offend.

  GIVING OF THANKS.

  At the feast of Harvest Thanksgiving. Early in November the preparations for it began. No such great event could happen without an extraordinary housecleaning; and from garret to cellar the housemaid's pail and brush were in demand. Spotless was every inch of paint, shining every bit of polished wood and glass; not a thimbleful of dust in the whole house. In the midst of all this household excitement Charlotte found some opportunities of seeing Mistress Gordon; and in the joy of receiving letters from, and sending letters to, her beloved Harleigh, she recovered a gayety of disposition which effectually repressed all urgent suspicions.

  In the middle of the afternoon of the day before the feast, there was the loud rat-tat-tat of the brass knocker, announcing a visitor. But visitors had been constant since the day of the feast was approaching, and Charlotte did not much trouble herself as to whom it might be. She was standing upon a ladder, pinning among the evergreens and scarlet berries rosettes and bows of ribbon of the splendid national color, and singing with a delightsome cheeriness,“But the maid of Holland, For her own true love, Ties the splendid orange, Orange still above! Orange still above!”

  “Orange still above! Oh, my dear, don't trouble yourself to come down! I can pass the time tolerably well, watching you.”

  It was Mistress Gordon, and she nodded and laughed in a triumphant way that very quickly brought Charlotte to her side. “My dear, I kiss you. You are the top beauty of my whole acquaintance.” Then, in a whisper, “Harleigh sends his devotion. And put your hand in my muff: there is a letter.

  Charlotte shook her head.

  “On my visit to Harleigh, as I left, this he said to me: “My honor, Charlotte
, is now in your keeping.” By the lifting of one eyelash, I will not stain it.”

  “Mistress Gordon, I am very much indebted to you.”

  “My dear, you are perfectly charming. You always convince me that I am a better woman than I imagine myself. I shall go straight to Harleigh, and tell him how exactly proper you are. Really, you have more perfections than any one woman has a right to.”

  “Tomorrow, if I have a letter ready, you will take it?”

  “I will run the risk, child. But really, if you could see the way mine host of the 'King's Arms' looks at me, you would be sensible of my courage. I am persuaded he thinks I carry you under my new wadded cloak. Now, adieu. Return to your evergreens and ribbons.

  “For your own true love, Tie the splendid orange, Orange still above!”

  And so, lightly humming Charlotte's favorite song, Mistress Gordon left the busy house.

  Before dinner the next day, Mistress Gordon had every one at his post. She was exceedingly gratified to find the building crowded when the festivities were to begin. The company was entirely composed of men of honor and substance, and women of irreproachable characters, dressed with that solid magnificence gratifying to a man who, like Joris Morgan, dearly loved respectability.

  Charlotte looked for Mistress Gordon in vain; she was not in the crowd, and she did not surface until the festival dinner was nearly over. Sir Edward was then considerably under the excitement of his fine position and fine fare. He sat by the side of his bride to be, at the right hand of Joris. Peter Block, the first mate of the “Great Christopher,” was just beginning to sing a song,—a foolish, sentimental ditty for so big and bluff a fellow,—in which some girl was thus entreated,—