"A PET DAY."
At breakfast the next morning Charlotte Harman was in almost wild
spirits. Her movements were generally rather sedate, as befitted one so
tall, so finely proportioned, so dignified. To-day her step seemed set
to some hidden rhythmic measure; her eyes laughed; her gracious, kindly
mouth was wreathed in perpetual smiles. Her father, on the contrary,
looked more bent, more careworn, more aged even than usual. Looking,
however, into her eyes for light, his own brightened. As he ate his
frugal breakfast of coffee and dry toast he spoke:
"Charlotte, your Uncle Jasper came to me last night with a proposal on
your behalf."
"Yes, father," answered Charlotte. She looked up expectantly. She
thought of Mrs. Home. Her uncle had told the tale after all, and her
dear and generous father would refuse her nothing. She should have the
great joy of giving three thousand pounds to that poor mother for the
use of her little children.
The next words, however, uttered by Mr. Harman caused these dreams to be
dispelled by others more golden. The most generous woman must at times
think first of herself. Charlotte was very generous; but her father's
next words brought dimples into very prominent play in each cheek.
"My darling, Jasper thinks me very cruel to postpone your marriage. I
will not postpone it. You and Hinton may fix the day. I will take that
brief of his on trust."
No woman likes an indefinite engagement, and Charlotte was not the
exception to prove this rule.
"Dearest father," she said, "I am very happy at this. I will tell John.
He is coming over this morning. But you know my conditions? No wedding
day for me unless my father agrees to live with me afterwards."
"Settle it as you please, dear child. I don't think there would be much
sunshine left for me if you were away from me. And now I suppose you
will be very busy. You have _carte blanche_ for the trousseau, but your
book? will you have time to write it, Charlotte? And that young woman
whom I saw in your room yesterday, is she the amanuensis whom you told
me about?"
"She is the lady whom I hoped to have secured, father, but she is not
coming."
"Not coming! I rather liked her look, she seemed quite a lady. Did you
offer her too small remuneration? Not that that would be your way, but
you do not perhaps know what such labor is worth."
"It was not that, dear father. I offered her what she herself considered
a very handsome sum. It was not that. She is very poor; very, very poor
and she has three little children. I never saw such a hungry look in any
eyes as she had, when she spoke of what money would be to her. But she
gave me a reason--a reason which I am not at liberty to tell to you,
which makes it impossible for her to come here."
Charlotte's cheeks were burning now, and something in her tone caused
her father to gaze at her attentively. It was not his way, however, to
press for any confidence not voluntarily offered. He rose from his seat
with a slight sigh.
"Well, dear," he said, "you must look for some one else. We can't talk
over matters to-night. Ask Hinton to stay and dine. There; I must be
off, I am very late as it is."
Mr. Harman kissed his daughter and she went out as usual to button on
his great-coat and see him down the street. She had performed this
office for him ever since--a little mite of four years old--she had
tried to take her dead mother's place. The child, the growing girl, the
young woman, had all in turns stood on those steps, and watched that
figure walking away. But never until to-day had she noticed how aged and
bent it had grown. For the first time the possibility visited her heart
that there might be such a thing for her in the future as life without
her father.
Uncle Jasper had said he was not well; no, he did not look well. Her
eyes filled with tears as she closed the hall door and re-entered the
house. But her own prospects were too golden just now to permit her to
dwell as long, or as anxiously, as she otherwise would have done, on so
gloomy an aspect of her father's case.
Charlotte Harman was twenty-five years of age; but, except when her
mother died, death had never come near her young life. She could
scarcely remember her mother, and, with this one exception, death and
sickness were things unknown. She has heard of them of course; but the
grim practical knowledge, the standing face to face with the foe, were
not her experience. She was the kind of woman who could develop into the
most tender nurse, into the wisest, best, and most helpful guide,
through those same dark roads of sickness and death, but the training
for this was all to come. No wonder that in her inexperience she should
soon cease to dwell on her father's bent figure and drawn, white face. A
reaction was over her, and she must yield to it.
As she returned to the comfortable breakfast-room, her eyes shone
brighter through their momentary tears. She went over and stood by the
hearth. She was a most industrious creature, having trained herself not
to waste an instant; but to-day she must indulge in a happy reverie.
How dark had been those few hours after Mrs. Home had left her
yesterday; how undefined, how dim, and yet how dark had been her
suspicions! She did not know what to think, or whom to suspect; but she
felt that, cost her what it might, she must fathom the truth, and that
having once fathomed it, something might be revealed to her that would
embitter and darken her whole life.
And behold! she had done so. She had bravely grasped the phantom in both
hands, and it had vanished into thin air. What she dreamed was not.
There was no disgrace anywhere. A morbid young woman had conjured up a
possible tale of wrong. There was no wrong. She, Mrs. Home, was to be
pitied, and Charlotte would help her; but beyond this no dark or evil
thing had come into her life.
And now, what a great further good was in store for her! Her father had
most unexpectedly withdrawn his opposition over the slight delay he had
insisted upon to her marriage. Charlotte did not know until now how she
had chafed at this delay; how she had longed to be the wife of the man
she loved. She said, "Thank God!" under her breath, then ran upstairs to
her own room.
Charlotte's maid had the special care of this room. It was a sunshiny
morning, and the warm spring air came in through the open window.
"Yes, leave it open," she said to the girl; "it seems as if spring had
really come to-day."
"But it is winter still, madam, February is not yet over," replied the
lady's maid. "Better let me shut it, Miss Harman, this is only a pet
day."
"I will enjoy it then, Ward," answered Miss Harman. "And now leave me,
for I am very busy."
The maid withdrew, and Charlotte seated herself by her writing table.
She was engaged over a novel which Messrs. M----, of ---- Street, had
pronounced really good; they would purchase the copyright, and they
wanted the MS. by a given date. How eager she had felt about this
yesterday; how determined not to let anything interfere with its
completion! But to-day, she took up her pen as usual, read over the last
page she had written, then sat quiet, waiting for inspiration.
What was the matter with her? No thought came. As a rule thoughts flowed
freely, proceeding fast from the brain to the pen, from the pen to the
paper. But to-day? What ailed her to-day? The fact was, the most natural
thing in the world had come to stop the flow of fiction. It was put out
by a greater fire. The moon could shine brilliantly at night, but how
sombre it looked beside the sun! The great sunshine of her own personal
joy was flooding Charlotte's heart to-day, and the griefs and delights
of the most attractive heroine in the world must sink into
insignificance beside it. She sat waiting for about a quarter of an
hour, then threw down her pen in disgust. She pulled out her watch.
Hinton could not be with her before the afternoon. The morning was
glorious. What had Ward, her maid, called the day?--"a pet day." Well,
she would enjoy it; she would go out. She ran to her room, enveloped
herself in some rich and becoming furs, and went into the street. She
walked on a little way, rather undecided where to turn her steps. In an
instant she could have found herself in Kensington Gardens or Hyde Park;
but, just because they were so easy of access, they proved unattractive.
She must wander farther afield. She beckoned to a passing hansom.
"I want to go somewhere where I shall have green grass and trees," she
said to the cabby. "No, it must not be Hyde Park, somewhere farther
off."
"There's the Regent's," replied the man. "I'll drive yer there and back
wid pleasure, my lady."
"I will go to Regent's Park," said Charlotte. She made up her mind, as
she was swiftly bowled along, that she would walk back. She was just in
that condition of suppressed excitement, when a walk would be the most
delightful safety-valve in the world.
In half an hour she found herself in Regent's Park and, having dismissed
her cab, wandered about amongst the trees. The whole place was flooded
with sunshine. There were no flowers visible; the season had been too
bad, and the year was yet too young; but for all that, nature seemed to
be awake and listening.
Charlotte walked about until she felt tired, then she sat down on one of
the many seats to rest until it was time to return home. Children were
running about everywhere. Charlotte loved children. Many an afternoon
had she gone into Kensington Gardens for the mere and sole purpose of
watching them. Here were children, too, as many as there, but of a
different class. Not quite so aristocratic, not quite so exclusively
belonging to the world of rank and fashion. The children in Regent's
Park were certainly quite as well dressed; but there was just some
little indescribable thing missing in them, which the little creatures,
whom Charlotte Harman was most accustomed to notice, possessed.
She was commenting on this, in that vague and slight way one does when
all their deepest thoughts are elsewhere, when a man came near and
shared her seat. He was a tall man, very slight, very thin. Charlotte,
just glancing at him took in this much also, that he was a clergyman. He
sat down to rest, evidently doing so from great fatigue. Selfish in her
happiness, Charlotte presently returned to her golden dreams. The
children came on fast, group after group; some pale and thin, some rosy
and healthy; a few scantily clothed, a few overladen with finery. They
laughed and scampered past her. For, be the circumstances what they
might, all the little hearts seemed full of mirth and sweet content. At
last a very small nurse appeared, wheeling a perambulator, while two
children ran by her side. These children were dressed neatly, but with
no attempt at fashion. The baby in the shabby perambulator was very
beautiful. The little group were walking past rather more slowly than
most of the other groups, for the older boy and girl looked decidedly
tired, when suddenly they all stopped; the servant girl opened her mouth
until it remained fixed in the form of a round O; the baby raised its
arms and crowed; the elder boy and girl uttered a glad shout and ran
forward.
"Father, father, you here?" said the boy. "You here?" echoed the girl,
and the whole cavalcade drew up in front of Charlotte and the thin
clergyman. The boy in an instant was on his father's knee, and the girl,
helping herself mightily by Charlotte's dress, had got on the bench.
The baby seeing this began to cry. The small nurse seemed incapable of
action, and Charlotte herself had to come to the rescue. She lifted the
little seven months old creature out of its carriage, and placed it in
its father's arms.
He raised his eyes gratefully to her face and placed his arm round the
baby.
"Oh! I'm falling," said the girl. "This seat is so slippy, may I sit on
your knee?"
It seemed the most natural thing in the world for Charlotte to take this
strange, shabbily dressed little girl into her embrace.
The child began to stroke down and admire her soft furs.
"Aren't they lovely?" she said. "Oh, Harold, look! Feel 'em, Harold;
they're like pussies."
Harold, absorbed with his father, turned his full blue eyes round
gravely and fixed them not on the furs, but on the strange lady's face.
"Father," he said in a slow, solemn tone, "may I kiss that pretty lady?"
"My dear boy, no, no. I am ashamed of you. Now run away, children; go on
with your walk. Nurse, take baby."
The children were evidently accustomed to implicit obedience. They went
without a word.
"But I will kiss Harold first," said Charlotte Harman, and she stooped
down and pressed her lips to the soft round cheek.
"Thank you," said the clergyman. Again he looked into her face and
smiled.
The smile on his careworn face reminded Charlotte of the smile on St.
Stephen's face, when he was dying. It was unearthly, angelic; but it was
also very fleeting. Presently he added in a grave tone,----
"You have evidently the great gift of attracting the heart of a little
child. Pardon me if I add a hope that you may never lose it."
"Is that possible?" asked Charlotte.
"Yes; when you lose the child spirit, the power will go."
"Oh! then I hope it never will," she replied.
"It never will if you keep the Christ bright within you," he answered.
Then he raised his hat to her, smiled again, and walked away.
He was a strange man, and Charlotte felt attracted as well as repelled.
She was proud, and at another time and from other lips such words would
have been received with disdain. But this queer, shadowy-looking
clergyman looked like an unearthly visitant. She watched his rather weak
footsteps, as he walked quietly away in the northern direction through
the park. Then she got up and prepared to return home. But this little
incident had sobered her. She was not unhappy; but she now felt very
grave. The child spirit! She must keep it alive, and the Christ must
dwell bright within her.
Charlotte's temperament was naturally religious. Her nature was so frank
and noble that she could not but drink in the good as readily as the
flower receives the dew; but she had come to this present fulness of her
youthful vigor without one trial being sent to test the gold. She
entered the house after her long walk to find Hinton waiting for her.