IT INTERESTS HER.
"And now, Mrs Home, we will have some lunch together up here, and then
afterwards we can talk and quite finish all our arrangements," said the
rich Charlotte, looking with her frank and pleasant eyes at the poor
one. She rang a bell as she spoke, and before Mrs. Home had time to
reply, a tempting little meal was ordered to be served without delay.
"I have been with my publishers this morning," said Miss Harman. "They
are good enough to say they believe my tale promises well, but they want
it completed by the first of March, to come out with the best spring
books. Don't you think we may get it done? It is the middle of January
now."
"I daresay it may be done," answered Mrs. Home, rising, and speaking in
a tremulous voice. "I have no doubt you will work hard and have it
ready--but--but--I regret it much, I have come to-day to say I cannot
take the situation you have so kindly offered me."
"But why?" said Miss Harman, "why?" Some color came into her cheeks as
she added, "I don't understand you. I thought you had promised. I
thought it was all arranged yesterday."
Her tone was a little haughty, but how well she used it; how keenly Mrs.
Home felt the loss of what she was resigning.
"I did promise you," she said; "I feel you have a right to blame me. It
is a considerable loss to me resigning your situation, but my husband
has asked me to do so. I must obey my husband, must I not?"
"Oh! yes, of course. But why should he object. He is a clergyman, is he
not? Is he too proud--I would tell no one. All in this house should
consider you simply as a friend. Our writing would be just a secret
between you and me. Your husband will give in when you tell him that."
"He is not in the least proud, Miss Harman--not proud I mean in that
false way."
"Then I am not giving you money enough--of course thirty shillings seems
too little; I will gladly raise it to two pounds a week, and if this
book succeeds, you shall have more for helping me with the next."
Mrs. Home felt her heart beating. How much she needed, how keenly she
longed for that easily earned money. "I must not think of it," she said,
however, shaking her head. "I confess I want money, but I must earn it
elsewhere. I cannot come here. My husband will only allow me to do so on
a certain condition. I cannot even tell you the condition--certainly I
cannot fulfil it, therefore I cannot come."
"Oh! but that is exciting. _Do_ tell it to me."
"If I did you would be the first to say I must never come to this house
again."
"I am quite sure you wrong me there. I may as well own that I have taken
a fancy to you. I am a spoiled child, and I always have my own way. My
present way is to have you here in this snug room for two or three hours
daily--you and I working in secret over something grand. I always get my
way so your conditions must melt into air. Now, what are they?"
"Dare I tell her?" thought Mrs. Home. Aloud she said, "The conditions
are these:--I must tell you a story, a story about myself--and--and
others."
"And I love stories, especially when they happen in real life."
"Miss Harman, don't tempt me. I want to tell you, but I had better not;
you had better let me go away. You are very happy now, are you not?"
"What a strange woman you are, Mrs. Home! Yes, I am happy."
"You won't like my story. It is possible you may not be happy after you
have heard it."
"That is a very unlikely possibility. How can the tale of an absolute
stranger affect my happiness?" These words were said eagerly--a little
bit defiantly.
But Mrs. Home's face had now become so grave, and there was such an
eager, almost frightened look in her eyes, that her companion's too
changed. After all what was this tale? A myth, doubtless; but she would
hear it now.
"I accept the risk of my happiness being imperiled," she said. "I choose
to hear the tale--I am ready."
"But I may not choose to tell," said the other Charlotte.
"I would make you. You have begun--begun in such a way that you _must_
finish."
"Is that so?" replied Mrs. Home. The light was growing more and more
eager in her eyes. She said to herself, "The die is cast." There rose up
before her a vision of her children--of her husband's thin face. Her
voice trembled.
"Miss Harman--I will speak--you won't interrupt me?"
"No, but lunch is on the table. You must eat something first."
"I am afraid I cannot with that story in prospect; to eat would choke
me!"
"What a queer tale it must be!" said the other Charlotte. "Well, so be
it." She seated herself in a chair at a little distance from Mrs. Home,
fixed her gaze on the glowing fire, and said, "I am ready. I won't
interrupt you."
The poor Charlotte, too, looked at the fire. During the entire telling
of the tale neither of these young women glanced at the other.
"It is my own story," began Mrs. Home: then she paused, and continued,
"My father died when I was two years old. During my father's lifetime I,
who am now so poor, had all the comforts that you must have had, Miss
Harman, in your childhood. He died, leaving my mother, who was both
young and pretty, nothing. She was his second wife, for five years she
had enjoyed all that his wealth could purchase for her. He died, leaving
her absolutely penniless. My mother was, as I have said, a second wife.
My father had two grown-up sons. These sons had quarrelled with him at
the time of his marrying my young mother; they came to see him and were
reconciled on his deathbed. He left to these sons every penny of his
great wealth. The sons expressed surprise when the will was read. They
even blamed my father for so completely forgetting his wife and youngest
child. They offered to make some atonement for him. During my mother's
lifetime they settled on her three thousand pounds; I mean the interest,
at five per cent., on that sum. It was to return to them at her death,
it was not to descend to me, and my mother must only enjoy it on one
condition. The condition was, that all communication must cease between
my father's family and hers. On the day she renewed it the money would
cease to be paid. My mother was young, a widow, and alone; she accepted
the conditions, and the money was faithfully paid to her until the day
of her death. I was too young to remember my father, and I only heard
this story about him on my mother's deathbed; then for the first time I
learned that we might have been rich, that we were in a measure meant to
enjoy the good things which money can buy. My mother had educated me
well, and you may be quite sure that with an income of one hundred and
fifty pounds a year this could only be done by practising the strictest
economy. I was accustomed to doing without the pretty dresses and nice
things which came as natural to other girls as the air they breathed. In
my girlhood, I did not miss these things; but at the time of my mother's
death, at the time the story first reached my ears, I was married, and
my eldest child was born. A poor man had made me, a poor girl his wife,
and, Miss Harman, let me tell you, that wives and mothers do long for
money. The longing with them is scarcely selfish, it is for the beings
dearer than themselves. There is a pain beyond words in denying your
little child what you know is for that child's good, but yet which you
cannot give because of your empty purse; there is a pain in seeing your
husband shivering in too thin a coat on bitter winter nights. You know
nothing of such things--may you never know them; but they have gone
quite through my heart, quite, quite through it. Well, that is my story;
not much, you will say, after all. I might have been rich, I am poor,
that is my story."
"It interests me," said Miss Harman, drawing a long breath, "it
interests me greatly; but you will pardon my expressing my real
feelings: I think your father was a cruel and unjust man."
"I think my brothers, my half-brothers, were cruel and unjust. I don't
believe that was my father's real will."
"What! you believe there was foul play? This is interesting--if so, if
you can prove it, you may be righted yet. Are your half-brothers
living?"
"Yes."
"And you think you have proof that you and your mother were unjustly
treated?"
"I have no proof, no proof whatever, Miss Harman, I have only
suspicions."
"Oh! you will tell me what they are?"
"Even they amount to very little, and yet I feel them to be certainties.
On the night before my father died he told my mother that she and I
would be comfortably off; he also said that he wished that I and his
son's little daughter, that other Charlotte he called her, should grow
up together as sisters. My father was a good man, his mind was not
wandering at all, why should he on his deathbed have said this if he
knew that he had made such an unjust will, if he knew that he had left
my mother and her little child without a sixpence?"
"Yes," said Miss Harman slowly and thoughtfully, "it looks strange."
After this for a few moments both these young women were silent. Mrs.
Home's eyes again sought the fire, she had told her story, the
excitement was over, and a dull despair came back over her face.
Charlotte Harman, on the contrary, was deep in that fine speculation
which seeks to succor the oppressed, her grey eyes glowed, and a faint
color came in to her cheeks. After a time she said--
"I should like to help you to get your rights. You saw that gentleman
who left the room just now, that younger gentleman, I am to be his wife
before long--he is a lawyer, may I tell him your tale?"
"No, no, not for worlds." Here Mrs. Home in her excitement rose to her
feet. "I have told the story, forget it now, let it die."
"What a very strange woman you are, Mrs. Home! I must say I cannot
understand you."
"You will never understand me. But it does not matter, we are not likely
to meet again. I saw you for the first time yesterday. I love you, I
thank you. You are a rich and prosperous young lady, you won't be too
proud to accept my thanks and my love. Now good-bye."
"No, you are not going in that fashion. I do not see why you should go
at all; you have told me your story, it only proves that you want money
very much, there is nothing at all to prevent your becoming my
amanuensis."
"I cannot, I must not. Let me go."
"But why? I do not understand."
"You will never understand. I can only repeat that I must not come
here."
Mrs. Home could look proud when she liked. It was now Miss Harman's turn
to become the suppliant; with a softness of manner which in so
noble-looking a girl was simply bewitching, she said gently----
"You confess that you love me."
Mrs. Home's eyes filled with tears.
"Because I do I am going away," she said.
She had just revealed by this little speech a trifle too much, the
trifle reflected a light too vivid to Charlotte Harman's mind, her face
became crimson.
"I will know the truth," she said, "I will--I must. This story--you say
it is about you; is it all about you? has it anything to say to me?"
"No, no, don't ask me--good-bye."
"I stand between you and the door until you speak. How old are you, Mrs.
Home?"
"I am twenty-five."
"That is my age. Who was that Charlotte your dying father wished you to
be a sister to?"
"I cannot tell you."
"You cannot--but you must. I will know. Was it--but impossible! it
cannot be--am _I_ that Charlotte?"
Mrs. Home covered her face with two trembling hands. The other woman,
with her superior intellect, had discovered the secret she had feebly
tried to guard. There was a pause and a dead silence. That silence told
all that was necessary to Charlotte Harman. After a time she said
gently, but all the fibre and tune had left her voice,----
"I must think over your story, it is a very, very strange tale. You are
right, you cannot come here; good-bye."