TWO CHARLOTTES.
It was a week after; the very day, in fact, on which Hinton was to give
up his present most comfortable quarters for the chances and changes of
Mrs. Home's poor little dwelling. That anxious young wife and mother,
having completed her usual morning duties, set off to Regent's Park to
meet Miss Harman. It was nearly March now, and the days, even in the
afternoon, were stretching, and though it was turning cold the feeling
of coming spring was more decidedly getting into the air.
Mrs. Home had told her children that she was going to meet their pretty
lady, and Harold had begged hard to come too. His mother would have
taken him, but he had a cold, and looked heavy, so she started off for
her long walk alone. Won by her husband's gentler and more Christ-like
spirit, Mrs. Home had written to Miss Harman to propose this meeting;
but in agreeing to an interview with her kinswoman she had effected a
compromise with her own feelings. She would neither go to her nor ask
her to come to the little house in Kentish Town. The fact was she wanted
to meet this young woman on some neutral ground. There were certain
unwritten, but still most stringent, laws of courtesy which each must
observe in her own home to the other. Charlotte Home intended, as she
went to meet Miss Harman on this day of early spring, that very plain
words indeed should pass between them.
By this it will be seen that she was still very far behind her husband,
and that much of a sore and angry sensation was still lingering in her
heart.
"Miss Harman will, of course, keep me waiting," she said to herself, as
she entered the park, and walked quickly towards the certain part where
they had agreed to meet. She gave a slight start therefore, when she saw
that young woman slowly pacing up and down, with the very quiet and
meditative air of one who had been doing so for some little time. Miss
Harman was dressed with almost studied plainness and simplicity. All the
rich furs which the children had admired were put away. When she saw
Mrs. Home she quickened her slow steps into almost a run of welcome, and
clasped her toil-worn and badly gloved hands in both her own.
"How glad I am to see you! You did not hurry, I hope. You are quite out
of breath. Why did you walk so fast?"
"I did not walk fast until I saw you under the trees, Miss Harman. I
thought I should have time enough, for I imagined I should have to wait
for you."
"What an unreasonable thing to suppose of me! I am the idle one, you the
busy. No: I respect wives and mothers too much to treat them in that
fashion." Miss Harman smiled as she spoke.
Mrs. Home did not outwardly respond to the smile, though the gracious
bearing, the loving, sweet face were beginning very slowly to effect a
thaw, for some hard little ice lumps in her heart were melting. The
immediate effect of this was, however, so strong a desire to cry that,
to steel herself against these untimely tears, she became in manner
harder than ever.
"And now what shall we do?" said Charlotte Harman. "The carriage is
waiting for us at the next gate; shall we go for a drive, or shall we
walk about here?"
"I would rather walk here," said Mrs. Home.
"Very well. Charlotte, I am glad to see you. And how are your children?"
"Harold has a cold. The other two are very well."
"I never saw sweeter children in my life. And do you know I met your
husband? He and your children both spoke to me in the park. It was the
day before I came to your house. Mr. Home gave me a very short sermon to
think over. I shall never forget it."
"He saw you and liked you," answered Mrs. Home. "He told me of that
meeting."
"And I want another meeting. Such a man as that has never come into my
life before. I want to see more of him. Charlotte, why did you propose
that we should meet here? Why not in my house, or in yours? I wanted to
come to you again. I was much disappointed when I got your note."
"I am sorry to have disappointed you; but I thought it best that we
should meet here."
"But why? I don't understand."
"They say that rich people are obtuse. I did not want to see your
riches, nor for you to behold the poverty of my land."
"Charlotte!"
"Please don't think me very hard, but I would rather you did not say
Charlotte."
"You would rather I did not say Charlotte?"
Two large tears of surprise and pain filled Miss Harman's gray eyes. But
such a great flood of weeping was so near the surface with the other
woman that she dared not look at her.
"I would rather you did not say Charlotte," she repeated, "for we call
those whom we love and are friendly with by their Christian names."
"I thought you loved me. You said so. You can't take back your own
words."
"I don't want to. I do love you in my heart. I feel I could love you
devotedly; but for all that we can never be friends."
Miss Harman was silent for a moment or two, then she said slowly, but
with growing passion in her voice, "Ah! you are thinking of that
wretched money. I thought love ranked higher than gold all the world
over."
"So it does, or appears to do, for those who all their lives have had
plenty; but it is just possible, just possible, I say, that those who
are poor, poor enough to know what hunger and cold mean, and have seen
their dearest wanting the comforts that money can buy, it is possible
that such people may prefer their money rights to the profession of
empty love."
"Empty love!" repeated Miss Harman. The words stung her. She was growing
angry, and the anger became this stately creature well. With cheeks and
eyes both glowing she turned to her companion. "If you and I are not to
part at once, and never meet again, there must be very plain words
between us. Shall I speak those words?" she asked.
"I came here that our words might be very plain," answered Mrs. Home.
"They shall be," said Charlotte Harman.
They were in a very quiet part of the park. Even the nurses and children
were out of sight. Now they ceased walking, and turned and faced each
other.
They were both tall, and both the poor and the rich young woman had
considerable dignity of bearing; but Charlotte Home was now the composed
one. Charlotte Harman felt herself quivering with suppressed anger.
Injustice was being dealt out to her, and injustice to the child of
affluence and luxury was a new sensation.
"You came to me the other day," she began, "I had never seen you before,
never before in all my life ever heard your name. You, however, knew me,
and you told me a story. It was a painful and very strange story. It
made you not only my very nearest kin, but also made you the victim of a
great wrong. The wrong was a large one, and the victim was to be pitied;
but the sting of it all lay, to me, not in either of the facts, but in
this, that you gave me to understand that he who had dealt you such a
blow was--my father. My father, one of the most noble, upright, and
righteous of men, you made out to me, to me, his only child, to be no
better than a common thief. I did not turn you from my doors for your
base words. I pitied you. In spite of myself I liked you; in spite of
myself I _believed_ you. You went away, and in the agony of mind which
followed during the next few hours I could have gladly fled for ever
from the sight of all the wide world. I had been the very happiest of
women. You came. You went. I was one of the most miserable. I am engaged
to be married, and the man I am engaged to came into the room. I felt
guilty before him. I could not raise my eyes to his, for, again I tell
you, I believed your tale, and my father's bitter shame was mine. I
could not rest. Happen what would I must learn the truth at once. I have
an uncle, my father's brother; he must know all. I sent my lover away
and went to this uncle. I asked to have an interview with him, and in
that interview I told him all you had told to me. He was not surprised.
He acknowledged at once the true and real relationship between us; but
he also explained away the base doubts you had put into my head. My
father, my own beloved father, is all, and more than all, I have ever
thought him. He would scorn to be unjust, to rob any one. You have been
unfortunate; you have been treated cruelly; but the injustice, the
cruelty have been penetrated by one long years now in his grave. In
short, your father has been the wicked man, not mine."
Here Mrs. Home tried to speak, but Miss Harman held up her hand.
"You must hear me out," she said. "I am convinced, but I do not expect
you to be. After my uncle had done speaking, and I had time to realize
all the relief those words of his had given me, I said, still an
injustice has been done. We have no right to our wealth while she
suffers from such poverty. Be my grandfather's will what it may, we must
alter it. We must so act as if he had left money to his youngest child.
My uncle agreed with me; perhaps not so fully as I could wish, still he
did agree; but he made one proviso. My father is ill, I fear. I fear he
is very ill. The one dark cloud hanging over his whole life lay in those
years when he was estranged from his own father. To speak of you I must
bring back those years to his memory. Any excitement is bad for him now.
My uncle said, 'Wait until your father is better, then we will do
something for Mrs. Home.' To this I agreed. Was I very unreasonable to
agree to this delay for my father's sake?"
Here Charlotte Harman paused and looked straight at her companion. Mrs.
Home's full gaze met hers. Again, the innocent candor of the one pair of
eyes appealed straight to the heart lying beneath the other. Unconvinced
she was still. Still to her, her own story held good: but she was
softened, and she held out her hand.
"There is no unreasonableness in _you_, Charlotte," she said.
"Ah! then you will call me Charlotte?" said the other, her face glowing
with delight.
"I call you so now. I won't answer for the future."
"We will accept the pleasant present. I don't fear the future. I shall
win your whole heart yet. Now let us drop all disagreeables and talk
about those we both love. Charlotte, what a baby you have got! Your baby
must be an angel to you."
"All my children are that to me. When I look at them I think God has
sent to me three angels to dwell with me."
"Ah! what a happy thought, and what a happy woman. Then your husband, he
must be like the archangel Gabriel, so just, so righteous, so noble. I
love him already: but I think I should be a little afraid of him. He is
so--so very unearthly. Now you, Mrs. Home, let me tell you, are very
earthly, very human indeed."
Mrs. Home smiled, for this praise of her best beloved could not but be
pleasant to her. She told Miss Harman a little more about her husband
and her children, and Miss Harman listened with that appreciation which
is the sweetest flattery in the world. After a time she said,--
"I am not going to marry any one the least bit unearthly, but I see you
are a model wife, and I want to be likewise. For--did I not tell you?--I
am to be married in exactly two months from now."
"Are you really? Are you indeed?"
Was it possible after this piece of confidence for these two young women
not to be friends?
Charlotte Home, though so poor, felt suddenly, in experience, in all
true womanly knowledge, rich beside her companion. Charlotte Harman, for
all her five and twenty years, was but a child beside this earnest wife
and mother.
They talked; the one relating her happy experience, the other listening,
as though on her wedding-day she was certainly to step into the land of
Beulah. It was the old, old story, repeated again, as those two paced up
and down in the gray March afternoon. When at last they parted there was
no need to say that they were friends.
And yet as she hurried home the poor Charlotte could not help reflecting
that whatever her cause she had done nothing for it. Charlotte Harman
might be very sweet. It might be impossible not to admire her, to love
her, to take her to her heart of hearts. But would that love bring back
her just rights? would that help her children by and by? She reached
her hall door to find her husband standing there.
"Lottie, where have you been? I waited for you, for I did not like to go
out and leave him. Harold is ill, and the doctor has just left."