While such happy prospects were opening on the future life of her
friend, the time of Charlotte Henley was very differently occupied in
the country. There is, however, a tendency in youth to rise with events
that does not readily admit of depression, and the disorder of George
Morton was one of all others the most flattering when near its close.
Even the more mature experience of his parents was misled by the
deceptive symptoms that his complaint assumed in the commencement of
summer. They who so fondly hoped the result, began to believe that youth
and the bland airs of June were overcoming the inexorable enemy. That
the strength of the young man lessened with every succeeding day, was an
event to be expected from his low diet and protracted confinement; but
his brightening eyes, and the flitting colour that would at times add
to their fiery radiance, brought to the youthful Charlotte the most
heartfelt, though secret, rapture. This state between reviving hope and
momentary despondency had prevailed for several weeks, when the
affectionate girl entered an apartment that communicated with George's
own room, where she found the invalid reclining on a settee apparently
deeply communing with himself. He was alone; and his appearance, as well
as the heavens and the earth, united to encourage the sanguine
expectation of the pure heart that throbbed so ardently when its owner
witnessed any favourable change in the countenance of the young man. The
windows were raised, and the balmy air of a June morning played through
the apartment, lending in reality an elastic vigour to the decaying
organs of the sick youth. The tinge in his cheeks was heightened by the
mellow glow of the sun's rays as they shone through the medium of the
rose-coloured curtains of the window, and Charlotte thought she once
more beheld the returning colour of health where it had been so long
absent.
"How much better you appear this morning, George," she cried, in a voice
whose melody was even heightened by its gaiety. "We shall soon have you
among us once more, and then, heedless one, beware how you trifle again
with that best of heaven's gifts, your health. Oh, this is a blessed
climate! our summer atones with its mildness for the dreariness and
perils of our winter; it has even given me a colour, pale-face as I
am--I can feel it burn on my cheek."
He raised his head from its musing position at the first sounds of her
voice, and smiled faintly, and with an expression of anguish, as she
proceeded; but when she had ended, and taken her seat near him, still
keeping her eyes on his varying countenance, he took her hand into his
own before he replied. A good deal surprised at his manner, and at this
act, which exceeded the usual familiarity of even their affectionate
intercourse, the colour, of which Miss Henley had been so playfully
boasting, changed once or twice with rapid transitions.
"Seem I so well, dear Charlotte?" he at length said in a low, tremulous,
and hollow voice, "seem I so well? I believe you are right, and that I
shall shortly be better--much better."
"What mean you, George? feel you any worse? have I disturbed you with my
presence and my thoughtless gaiety?"
The young man smiled again, but the expression of his face was no longer
mingled with a look of anguish; it was a kind benevolent gleam of
gratitude and affection which crossed his ghastly features, like a ray
of sunshine enlivening the gloom of a day in winter.
"You disturb me, Charlotte!" he answered, his very voice trembling as if
in sympathy with his frame: "I do believe but for you I should have been
long since in my grave."
"No, no, George, this is too melancholy a theme for us both just now;
let us talk of your returning health."
He pressed her hand to his heart before he replied--"My health will
never return; I am lost to this world; and in fact at this moment I
properly belong to another in my body: would to God that I was purely
so in feelings also."
"Surely, George, you are alarming yourself unnecessarily."
"I am not alarmed," he replied; "I have too long foreseen this event, to
feel alarmed at my approaching dissolution--no, for that, blessed be my
God and my Redeemer, I am in some degree prepared; but I feel it
impossible to shake off the feelings of this life while the pulse
continues to beat, and yet the emotions I now experience must be in some
measure allied to heaven; they are not impure, they are not selfish;
nothing can partake of either, dear Charlotte, where your image is
connected with the thoughts of a future world."
"Oh, George! talk not so gloomily, so cruelly, this morning--your whole
countenance contradicts your melancholy speech, and you are
better--indeed you are;--you must be better."
"Yes, I am better, I am nearly well," returned the youth, pausing a
moment, while a struggle of the most painful interest seemed to engross
his thoughts. As it passed away, he drew his hand feebly across his
clammy brow, and, smiling faintly, resumed his speech,--"on the brink of
the grave, at a moment when all thoughts of me must be connected with
the image of death, there can no longer be any necessity for silence.
You have been kind to us, dear Miss Henley, as you are kind to all; but
to me your sympathy has been trebly dear, for it has brought with it a
consolation and pleasure that you but little imagine."
Miss Henley raised her tearful eyes from the floor to his wan features,
that now appeared illumined with more than human fires, and her pale
lips quivered, but her voice was inaudible.
"Yes, Charlotte, I may now speak without injustice, or the fear of being
selfish: I have long loved you--how tenderly, how purely, none can ever
know; but could I, with a certainty of my fate before my eyes, with the
knowledge that my days were numbered, and that the sun of my life could
never reach its meridian, woo you to my love, to make you miserable! No,
dearest! your gentle heart will mourn the brother and the friend too
much for its own peace; it needed not the sting of a stronger grief."
"George, George," sobbed the convulsed girl, "think not of me; speak not
of me--if it can cheer you at such a moment to know how much you are
valued by me, no cold reserve shall be found on my part."
The young man started, and fastened his eyes on her face with an
indefinable look of delight mingled with sorrow.
"Charlotte!" he exclaimed, "do I hear aright? am I so miserable! am I so
happy! repeat those words--quick--my eyes grow dim--my senses deceive
me."
"Live, George Morton," said Charlotte firmly: "you are better--your
whole face bespeaks it; and if the tender care of an affectionate wife
can preserve your health, you shall long live a blessing to all who love
you."
As Charlotte uttered, thus ingenuously, her pure attachment, the youth
extended his hand towards her blindly. She gave him her own, which he
drew to his heart, and folded to his bosom with a warm pressure for an
instant, when his hold relaxed, his form dropping backward on the sofa,
and in that attitude he expired without a struggle.
We shall not dwell on the melancholy scenes that followed. At the
funeral of George Morton Miss Henley was not to be seen, nor was it
generally understood that the young people had been connected in the
closest ties of feeling. She made no display of her griefs in her dress,
unless the slight testimonials of a few bright ribbands on the virgin
white of her robe could be called such, and the rumour that was at first
propagated of their being engaged to each other was discredited, because
the traces of sorrow were not particularly visible in the attire of Miss
Henley. When the season of gaiety returned, she appeared as usual in her
place in society. Though her cheeks were seldom enriched with the faint
glow that once rendered her so beautiful, and she was less dazzling in
her appearance, yet, if possible, she was more lovely and attractive. In
the course of the winter, several gentlemen approached her with the
evident intention of offering their hands. Their advances were received
with great urbanity, but in most instances with that unembarrassed
manner that is fatal to hope. One of her admirers, however, persevered
so far as to solicit her hand: the denial was mild, but resolute; like
most young men who think their happiness dependent on a lady's smile, he
wished to know if he had a successful rival. He was assured he had not.
His curiosity even went so far as to inquire if Miss Henley had abjured
matrimony. The answer was a simple, unaffected negative. Amazed at his
own want of success, the youth then intimated his intention of making a
future application for her favour.
In the mean time, Seymour Delafield, after casting one longing,
lingering look at Miss Henley, became the husband of her friend, and
made the fourteenth in the prolific family of the Osgoods, where his
wealth was not less agreeable to the parents, than his person to the
daughter.
Many years have rolled by since the occurrence of these events, and Miss
Henley continues the same in every thing but appearance. The freshness
of her beauty has given place to a look of intelligence and delicacy
that seems gradually fitting her for her last and most important change.
The name of George Morton is never heard to pass her lips. Mrs.
Delafield declares it to be a subject that she never dares to approach,
nor in her repeated refusals of matrimonial offers has Charlotte ever
been known to allude to the desolation of her own heart. Her father is
dead; but to her mother Miss Henley has in a great measure supplied his
loss. With her friends she is always cheerful, and apparently happy,
though the innocent gaiety of her childhood is sensibly checked, and
there are moments that betray the existence of a grief that is only the
more durable, because it is less violent. In short, she lives a pattern
for her sex, unfettered by any romantic and foolish pledges, discharging
all the natural duties of her years and station in an exemplary manner,
but unwilling to incur any new ones, because she has but one heart, and
that was long since given with its purity, sincerity, and truth, to him
who is dead, and can never become the property of another.
When Charlotte Henley dies, although she may not have fulfilled one of
the principal objects of her being, by becoming a mother, her example
will survive her; and those who study her character and integrity of
feeling, will find enough to teach them what properties are the most
valuable in forming that sacred character--while her own sex can learn
that, though in the case of Miss Henley, Providence has denied the full
exercise of her excellences, it has at the same time rendered her a
striking instance of female dignity, by exhibiting to the world the
difference between affection and caprice, and by shewing how much
Imagination is inferior to Heart.
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's Tales for Fifteen, by James Fenimore Cooper