THE POOR CHARLOTTE.
While this light and playful scene was being enacted in a wealthy house
in Prince's Gate, and Charlotte Harman and her father laughed merrily
over the Australian uncle's horror of authors and their works, another
Charlotte was going through a very different part, in a different place
in the great world's centre.
There could scarcely be a greater contrast than between the small and
very shabby house in Kentish Town and the luxurious mansion in
Kensington. The parlor of this house, for the drawing-rooms were let to
lodgers, was occupied by one woman. She sat by a little shabbily covered
table, writing. The whole appearance of the room was shabby: the
furniture, the carpet, the dingy window panes, the tiny pretence of a
fire in the grate. It was not exactly a dirty room, but it lacked all
brightness and freshness. The chimney did not draw well, and now and
then a great gust of smoke would come down, causing the busy writer to
start and rub her smarting eyes. She was a young woman, as young as
Charlotte Harman, with a slight figure and very pale face. There were
possibilities of beauty in the face. But the possibilities had come to
nothing; the features were too pinched, too underfed, the eyes, in
themselves dark and heavily fringed, too often dimmed by tears. It was a
very cold day, and sleet was beginning to fall, and the smoking chimney
had a vindictive way of smoking more than ever, but the young woman
wrote on rapidly, as though for bare life. Each page as she finished it,
was flung on one side; some few fell on the floor, but she did not stop
even to pick them up.
The short winter daylight had quite faded, and she had stood up to light
the gas, when the room door was pushed slightly ajar, and one of those
little maids-of-all-work, so commonly seen in London, put in her untidy
head.
"Ef you please, 'em, Harold's been and hurt Daisy, and they is
quarreling h'ever so, and I think as baby's a deal worse, 'em."
"I will go up to them, Anne, and you may stay down and lay the cloth for
tea--I expect your master in early to-night."
She put her writing materials hastily away, and with a light, quick step
ran upstairs. She entered a room which in its size and general
shabbiness might better have been called an attic, and found herself in
the presence of three small children. The two elder ran to meet her with
outstretched arms and glad cries. The baby sat up in his cot and gazed
hard at his mother with flushed cheeks and round eyes.
She took the baby in her arms and sat down in a low rocking-chair close
to the fire. Harold and Daisy went on their little knees in front of
her. Now that mother had come their quarrel was quite over, and the poor
baby ceased to fret.
Seated thus, with her little children about her there was no doubt at
all that Charlotte Home had a pleasant face; the care vanished from her
eyes as she looked into the innocent eyes of her babies, and as she
nursed the seven-months-old infant she began crooning a sweet old song
in a true, delicious voice, to which the other two listened with
delight:----
"In the days when we went gipsying,
A long time ago."
"What's gipsying, mother?" asked Harold, aged six.
"Something like picnicking, darling. People who live in the country, or
who are rich,"--here Mrs. Home sighed--"often, in the bright summer
weather, take their dinner or their tea, and they go out into the woods
or the green fields and eat there. I have been to gypsy teas; they are
great fun. We lit a fire and boiled the kettle over it, and made the
tea; it was just the same tea as we had at home, but somehow it tasted
much better out-of-doors."
"Was that some time ago, mother?" asked little Daisy.
"It would seem a long, long time to you, darling; but it was not so many
years ago."
"Mother," asked Harold, "why aren't we rich, or why don't we live in the
country?"
A dark cloud, caused by some deeper emotion than the mere fact of being
poor, passed over the mother's face.
"We cannot live in the country," she said, "because your father has a
curacy in this part of London. Your father is a brave man, and he must
not desert his post."
"Then why aren't we rich?" persisted the boy.
"Because--because--I cannot answer you that, Harold; and now I must run
downstairs again. Father is coming in earlier than usual to-night, and
you and Daisy may come down for a little bit after tea--that is, if you
promise to be very good children now, and not to quarrel. See, baby has
dropped asleep; who will sit by him and keep him from waking until Anne
comes back?"
"I, mother," said Harold, and, "I, mother," said Daisy.
"That is best," said the gentle-voiced mother; "you both shall keep him
very quiet and safe; Harold shall sit on this side of his little cot and
Daisy at the other."
Both children placed themselves, mute as mice, by the baby's side, with
the proud look of being trusted on their little faces. The mother kissed
them and flew downstairs. There was no time for quiet or leisurely
movement in that little house; in the dingy parlor, the gas had now been
lighted, and the fire burned better and brighter, and Anne with most
praiseworthy efforts, was endeavoring to make some toast, which, alas!
she only succeeded in burning. Mrs. Home took the toasting-fork out of
her hands.
"There, Anne, that will do nicely: I will finish the toast. Now please
run away, and take Miss Mitchell's dinner up to her; she is to have a
little pie to-night and some baked potatoes; they are all waiting, and
hot in the oven, and then please go back to the children."
Anne, a really good-tempered little maid-of-all-work, vanished, and Mrs.
Home made some fresh toast, which she set, brown, hot, and crisp, in the
china toast-rack. She then boiled a new-laid egg, and had hardly
finished these final preparations before the rattle of the latch-key was
heard in the hall-door, and her husband came in. He was a tall man, with
a face so colorless that hers looked almost rosy by contrast; his voice,
however, had a certain ring about it, which betokened that most rare and
happy gift to its possessor, a brave and courageous heart. The way in
which he now said, "Ah, Lottie!" and stooped down and kissed her, had a
good sound, and the wife's eyes sparkled as she sat down by the
tea-tray.
"Must you go out again to-night, Angus?" she said presently.
"Yes, my dear. Poor Mrs. Swift is really dying at last. I promised to
look in on her again."
"Ah, poor soul! has it really come? And what will those four children
do?"
"We must get them into an Orphanage; Petterick has interest. I shall
speak to him. Lottie?"
"Yes, dear."
"Beat up that fresh egg I saw you putting into the cupboard when I came
in; beat it up, and add a little milk and a teaspoonful of brandy. I
want to take it round with me to little Alice. That child has never left
her mother's side for two whole days and nights, and I believe has
scarcely tasted a morsel; I fear she will sink when all is over."
Lottie rose at once and prepared the mixture, placing it, when ready, in
a little basket, which her husband seldom went out without; but as she
put it in his hand she could not refrain from saying----
"I was keeping that egg for your breakfast, Angus; I do grudge it a
little bit."
"And to eat it when little Alice wanted it so sorely would choke me,
wife," replied the husband; and then buttoning his thin overcoat tightly
about him, he went out into the night.