Charlotte's Inheritance Part 19

He had been promised a home, comfort, respectability, friendship--"all that should accompany old age"--and she had prevented the fulfilment of the promise. Heaven knows how pure her motives had been; but as she watched that drooping head, with its silvered hair, she felt that she had been cruel.

"Papa," she began presently, laying her hand caressingly upon her father's neck; but he pushed aside the timid, caressing hand--"papa, you think me very unkind, only because I have done what I believe to be right; indeed it is so, papa dear. In what I said to Gustave Len.o.ble this evening, I was governed only by my sense of right."

"Indeed!" cried the Captain, with a strident laugh; "and where did you pick up your sense of right, madam, I should like to know? From what Methodist parson's hypocritical twaddle have you learnt to lay down the law to your poor old father about the sense of right? 'Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land,' miss, _that's_ what your Bible teaches you; but the Bible has gone out of fashion, I dare say, since I was a young man; and your model young woman of the present generation taunts her father with her sense of right. Will your sense of right be satisfied when you hear of your father rotting in the old-men's ward of a workhouse, or dying on the London stones?"

"I am not unfeeling, papa. With all my heart I pity you; but it is cruel on your part to exaggerate the misery of your position, as I am sure you must be doing. Why should your means of living fail because I refuse to marry M. Len.o.ble? You have lived hitherto without my help, as I have lived of late without yours. Nothing could give me greater happiness than to know that you were exempt from care; and if my toil can procure you a peaceful home in the future--as I believe it can, or education and will to work must go for nothing--there shall be no lack of industry on my part. I will work for you, I will indeed, papa--willingly, happily."

"When your work can give me such a home as Cotenoir--a home that one word of yours would secure for me--I will thank you."

"If you will only wait, papa, if you will only have patience--"

"Patience! Wait! Do you know what you are talking about? Do you prate of patience, and waiting, and hope in the future to a man who has no future--to a man whose days are numbered, and who feels the creeping chills of death stealing over him every day as he sits beside his wretched hearth, or labours through his daily drudgery? I can live as I have always lived! Yes; but do you know, or care to know, that with every day life becomes more difficult for me? Your fine friends at Bayswater have done with me. I have spent the last sixpence I shall ever see from Philip Sheldon. Hawkehurst has cut me, like the ungrateful hound he is.

When they have squeezed the orange, they throw away the rind. Didn't Voltaire say that, when Frederick of Prussia gave him the go-by? Heaven knows it's true enough; and now you, who by a word might secure yourself a splendid position--yes, I say splendid for a poor drudge and dependent like you, and insure a home for me--you, forsooth, must needs favour me with your high-flown sentiments about your sense of right, and promise me a home in the future, if I will wait and hope! No, Diana, waiting and hoping are done with for me, and I can find a home in the bed of the river without your help."

"You would not be so wicked as to do that!" cried Diana, aghast.

"I don't know about the wickedness of the act. But, rely upon it, when my choice lies between the workhouse and the river, I shall prefer the river. The modern workhouse is no inviting sanctuary, and I dare say many a homeless wretch makes the same choice."

For some minutes there was silence. Diana stood with her elbows resting on the chimneypiece, her face covered with her hands.

"O Lord, teach me to do the thing which is right!" she prayed, and in the next breath acted on the impulse of the moment.

"What would you have me do?" she asked.

"What any one but an idiot would do of her own accord--accept the good fortune that has dropped into your lap. Do you think such luck as yours goes begging every day?"

"You would have me accept Gustave Len.o.ble's offer, no matter what falsehoods may be involved in my acceptance of it?"

"I can see no reason for falsehood. Any one but an idiot would honour such a man; any one but an idiot would thank Providence for such good fortune."

"Very well, papa," exclaimed Diana, with a laugh that had no mirthful music, "I will not be the exceptional idiot. If M. Len.o.ble does me the honour to repeat his offer--and I think from his manner he means to do so--I will accept it."

"He shall repeat it!" cried the Captain, throwing off his a.s.sumption of the tragic father. The Oedipus Coloneus, the Lear--the venerable victim of winter winds and men's ingrat.i.tude--was transformed in a moment into an elderly Jeremy Diddler, lined with Lord Foppington. "He shall repeat it; I will have him at your feet to-morrow. Yes, Di, my love, I pledge myself to bring that about, without compromise to your maidenly pride or the dignity of a Paget. My dear child, I ought to have known that reflection would show you where your duty lies. I fear I have been somewhat harsh, but you must forgive me, Di; I have set my heart on this match, for your happiness as well as my own. I could not stand the disappointment; though I admired, and still admire, the high feeling, and all that kind of thing, which prompted your refusal. A school-girlish sentimentality, child, but with something n.o.ble in it; not the sentimentality of a vulgar schoolgirl. The blue blood will show itself, my love; and now--no, no, don't cry. You will live to thank me for to-night's work; yes, my child, to thank me, when you look round your comfortable home by-and-by--when my poor old bones are mouldering in their unpretending sepulchre--and say to yourself, 'I have my father to thank for this. Adverse circ.u.mstances forbade his doing his duty as happier fathers are allowed the privilege of doing theirs, but it was his forethought, his ever-watchful care, which secured me an admirable husband and a happy home.' Mark my words, the time will come when you will say this, my dear."

"I will try to think of you always kindly, papa," Miss Paget answered in a low sad voice; "and if my marriage can secure your happiness and Gustave Len.o.ble's, I am content. I only fear to take too much, and give too little."

"My love, you must certainly be the lineal descendant of Don Quixote. Too much, and too little, forsooth! Let Len.o.ble find a handsomer woman, or a more elegant woman, by gad, elsewhere! Such a woman as a duke might be proud to make his d.u.c.h.ess, by Jove! There shall be no sense of obligation on our side, my love. Gustave Len.o.ble shall be made to feel that he gets change for his shilling. Kiss me, child, and tell me you forgive me for being a little rough with you, just now."

"Forgive you?--yes, papa. I dare say you are wiser than I. Why should I refuse M. Len.o.ble? He is good and kind, and will give us a happy home?

What more can I want? Do I want to be like Charlotte, to whom life seems all poetry and brightness?"

"And who is going to throw herself away upon a penny-a-liner, by Jove!"

interjected the Captain.

"Can I hope to be like that girl, with her happy ignorance of life, her boundless love and trust! O, no, no, papa; those things are not for me."

She laid her head upon her father's breast, and sobbed like a child. This was her second farewell to the man she had loved, the dreams she had dreamed. The Captain comforted her with a paternal embrace, but was as powerless to comprehend her emotion as if he had found himself suddenly called upon to console the sorrows of a j.a.panese widow.

"Hysterical," he murmured. "These n.o.ble natures are subject to that kind of thing. And now, my love," he continued, in a more business-like tone, "let us talk seriously. I think it would be very advisable for you to leave Bayswater, and take up your abode in these humble lodgings with me immediately."

"Why, papa?"

"The reason is sufficiently obvious, my love. It is not right that you should continue to eat the bread of dependence. As the future wife of Gustave Len.o.ble--and in this case, the word future means immediately--"

"Papa," cried Diana suddenly, "you will not hurry me into this marriage?

I have consented for your sake. You will not be so ungenerous as to--"

"As to hurry you? No, my dear, of course not. There shall be no indecent haste. Your wishes, your delicate and disinterested motives, shall be consulted before all things; yes, my love," cried the Captain, sorely afraid of some wavering on the part of his daughter, and painfully anxious to conciliate her, "all shall be in accordance with your wishes.

But I must urge your immediate removal from Bayswater; first, because M.

Len.o.ble will naturally wish to see you oftener than he can while you are residing with people whose acquaintance I do not want him to make; and secondly, because you have no further need of Mrs. Sheldon's patronage."

"It has been kindness, affection, papa--never patronage. I could not leave Mrs. Sheldon or Charlotte abruptly or ungraciously, upon any consideration. They gave me a home when I most bitterly needed one.

They took me away from the dull round of schoolroom drudgery, that was fast changing me into a hard hopeless joyless automaton. My first duty is to them."

The Captain's angry sniff alone expressed the indignation which this impious remark inspired.

"My next shall be to you and M. Len.o.ble. Let me give Mrs. Sheldon due notice of the change in our plans."

"What do you call due notice?" asked Horatio, peevishly.

"A quarter's notice."

"O, indeed! Then for three months you are to dance attendance upon Mrs.

Sheldon, while M. Len.o.ble is waiting to make you his wife."

"I must consult the wishes of my friends, papa."

"Very well, my dear," replied the Captain, with a sigh that was next of kin to a groan; "you must please yourself and your friends, I suppose; your poor old father is a secondary consideration." And then, timeously mindful of the skirmish he had just had with his daughter, Captain Paget made haste to a.s.sure her of his regard and submission.

"All shall be as you please, my love," he murmured. "There, go into my room, and smooth your hair, and bathe your eyes, while I ring for the tea."

Diana obeyed. She found eau-de-cologne and the most delicate of Turkey sponges on her father's wash-handstand; jockey-club, and ivory-backed brushes, somewhat yellow with age, but bearing crest and monogram, on his dressing-table. The workhouse did not seem quite so near at hand as the Captain had implied; but with these sanguine people it is but a step from disappointment to despair.

"What am I to tell Mrs. Sheldon, papa?" she asked, when she was pouring out her father's tea.

"Well, I think you had better say nothing, except that my circ.u.mstances have somewhat improved, and that my failing health requires your care."

"I hate secrets, papa."

"So do I, my dear; but half-confidences are more disagreeable than secrets."

Diana submitted. She secretly reserved to herself the right to tell Charlotte anything she pleased. From that dear adopted sister she would hide nothing.

"If M. Len.o.ble should repeat his offer, and I should accept it, I will tell her all," she thought. "It will make that dear girl happy to know that there is some one who loves me, besides herself."

And then she thought of the strange difference of fate that gave to this Charlotte Halliday, with her rich stepfather and comfortable surroundings, a penniless soldier of fortune for a lover, while to her, the spendthrift adventurer's daughter, came a wealthy suitor.

"Will hers be the dinner of herbs, and mine the stalled ox?" she thought.

"Ah, Heaven forbid! Why is it so difficult to love wisely, so easy to love too well?"