Charlotte's Inheritance Part 20

She remembered the cynical French proverb, "When we can not have what we love, we must love what we have." But the cynical proverb brought her no comfort.

She went back to Bayswater with a strange bewildered feeling; after having promised her father to go to Omega Street whenever he sent for her. There was no actual pain in her mind, no pa.s.sionate desire to recall her promise, no dread horror of the step to which she had pledged herself. The feeling that oppressed her was the sense that such a step should have been the spontaneous election of her grateful heart, proud of a good man's preference, instead of a weak submission to a father's helplessness.

Book the Fifth.

THE FIRST ACT OF MR. SHELDON'S DRAMA.

CHAPTER I.

TAKEN BY STORM.

Two days after her interview with Gustave Len.o.ble, Miss Paget received a brief note from her father, summoning her again to Omega Street.

"He has not gone back to Normandy," wrote the Captain.

"My child, he positively worships the ground you walk upon. Ah, my love, _it is something to have a father_! I need scarcely tell you that his first idea of your excellence was inspired by those glowing descriptions of your goodness, your beauty, your heroism, which I favoured him with, _en pa.s.sant_, during our conversations at Cotenoir, where the happy accident of a business transaction first introduced me to him. The interests of my only child have ever been near and dear to me; and where a duller man would have perceived only a wealthy stranger, my paternal instincts recognized at a glance the predestined husband of my daughter.

It needed my wide experience of life--and, as I venture to believe, my subtle knowledge of the human heart--to understand that a man who had lived for five-and-thirty years buried alive in a French province--a charming place, my love, and for your refined taste replete with interest--never seeing a mortal except his immediate neighbours, would be the man of men to fall in love with the first attractive young woman he met among strangers. Come to me this afternoon without fail, and come early.--Yours,

"H.N.C.P."

Diana obeyed this summons submissively, but still troubled by that strange sense of bewilderment which had affected her since her stormy interview with Captain Paget. She was not quite certain of herself. The old dreams--the sweet foolish girlish fancies--were not yet put away altogether from her mind; but she knew that they were foolish, and she was half-inclined to believe that there had been some wisdom in her father's scorn.

"What do I want more?" she asked herself. "He is good and brave and true, and he loves me. If I were a princess, my marriage would be negotiated for me by other people, and I should have reason to consider myself very happy if the man whom the state selected for my husband should prove as good a man as Gustave Len.o.ble. And he loves me; me, who have never before had power over a man's heart!"

She walked across Hyde Park on this occasion, as on the last; and her thoughts, though always confused--mere rags and sc.r.a.ps of thought--were not all unpleasant. There was a smile, half shy, half tender, on her face as she went into the little sitting-room where Gustave was waiting for her. She had seen his hat and overcoat in the pa.s.sage, and knew that he was there waiting for her. To this poor desolate soul there was something sweet in the idea of being waited for.

As she stood but a little within the doorway, blushing, almost trembling with the sense of her changed position, her lover came across the room and took her in his arms. The strong brave arms held her to his breast; and in that one embrace he took her to his heart, and made her his own for ever.

In every story of life-long affection, there is one moment in which the bond is sealed. Diana looked up at the frank tender face, and felt that she had found her conqueror. Master, friend, protector, husband, adoring and devoted lover, gallant and fearless champion--he was all; and she divined his power and his worth as she glanced shyly upward, ashamed to be so lightly won.

"M. Len.o.ble," she faltered, trying to withdraw herself from the strong encircling arm that held her, as if by right.

"Gustave, now and for ever, my Diane! There shall be no more Monsieur Len.o.ble. And in a few weeks it shall be 'my husband.' Your father has given me to you. He tells me to laugh at your refusals your scruples; to a.s.sail you like your Shakespeare's Petruchio a.s.sails his Katherine--with audacious insolence that will not be denied. And I shall take his advice.

Look up into my face, dear angel, and defy me to take his advice."

Happily the dear angel looked only downwards. But M Len.o.ble was resolved to have an agreeable response.

"See, then, thou canst not defy me!" he cried, in the only language he spoke; and the "_tu_" for the first time sounded very tender, very sweet.

"Thou canst not tell me thou art angry with me. And the other--the imbecile;--he is gone for ever, is he not? Ah, say yes!"

"Yes, he is gone," said Diana, almost in a whisper.

"Is he quite gone? The door of thine heart locked against him, his luggage thrown out of the window?"

"He is gone!" she murmured softly. "He could not hold his place against you--you are so strong--so brave; and he was only a shadow. Yes, he is gone."

She said this with a little sigh of relief. It was in all sincerity that she answered her suitor's question. She felt that a crisis had come in her life--the first page of a new volume; and the old sad tear-blotted book might be cast away.

"Dear angel, wilt thou ever learn to love me?" asked Gustave, in a half-whisper, bending down his bearded face till his lips almost touched her cheek.

"It is impossible not to love you," she answered softly. And indeed it seemed to her as if this chivalrous Gaul was a creature to command the love of women, the fear of men; an Achilles _en frac_; a Bayard without his coat of mail; Don Quixote in his youth, generous, brave, compa.s.sionate, tender, and with a brain not as yet distempered by the reading of silly romances.

Captain Paget emerged from his den as the little love scene ended. He affected a gentlemanly unconsciousness of the poetry involved in the situation, was pleasantly anxious about the tea-tray, the candles, and minor details of life; and thus afforded the lovers ample time in which to recover their composure. The Frenchman was in no wise discomposed; he was only abnormally gay, with a little air of triumph that was not unpleasing. Diana was pale; but there was an unwonted light in her eyes, and she had by no means the appearance of a victim newly offered on the sacrificial altar of filial duty. In sober truth, Miss Paget was happier to-night than she had been for a long time. At three-and-twenty she was girl enough to rejoice in the knowledge that she was truly loved, and woman enough to value the sense of peace involved in the security of a prosperous future.

If she was grateful to her lover--and the affection he had inspired in her heart had grown out of grat.i.tude--it was no mercenary consideration as to his income or position that made her grateful. She thanked him for his love--that treasure which she had never expected to possess; she thanked him because he had taken her by the hand, and led her out of the ranks of lonely dependent womanhood, and seated her upon a throne, on the steps whereof he was content to kneel. Whether the throne were a rushen chair in some rustic cottage, or a gilded _fauteuil_ in a palace, she cared very little. It was the subject's devotion that was new and sweet to her.

She went to Charlotte's room that night, when Mr. Sheldon's small household was at rest; as she had gone on Christmas Eve to renounce her lover and to bless her rival. This time it was a new confession she went to make, and a confession that involved some shame. There is nothing so hard to confess as inconstancy; and every woman is not so philosophic as Rahel Varnhagen, who declared that to be constant was not always to love the same person, but always to love some one.

Miss Paget seated herself at Charlotte's feet, as she had done on that previous occasion. The weather was still cold enough to make a fire very pleasant, though it was more than two months since the Christmas bells had rung out upon the frosty air. Diana sat on a low ha.s.sock, playing with the ta.s.sels of her friend's dressing-gown, anxious to make her confession, and solely at a loss for words in which to shape so humiliating an avowal.

"Charlotte," she began abruptly at last, "have you any idea when you and Valentine are to be married?"

Miss Halliday gave a little cry of surprise.

"Why, of course not, Di! How can you ask such a question? Our marriage is what uncle George calls a remote contingency. We are not to be married for ages--not until Valentine has obtained a secure position in literature, and an income that seems almost impossible. That was the special condition upon which Mr. Sheldon--papa--gave his consent to our engagement. Of course it was very proper and prudent of him to think of these things; and as he has been very kind and liberal-minded in his conduct to me throughout, I should be a most ungrateful person if I refused to be guided by his advice."

"And I suppose that means that your engagement is to be a long one?"

"The longest of long engagements. And what can be happier than a long engagement? One gets to know and understand the man one is to marry so thoroughly. I think I know every turn of thought in Valentine's mind; every taste, every fancy; and I feel myself every day growing to think more and more like him. I read the books he reads, so as to be able to talk to him, you know; but I am not so clever as you, Di, and Valentine's favourite authors do sometimes seem rather dry to me. But I struggle on, you know; and the harder I find the struggle, the more I admire my dear love's cleverness. Think of him, Di--three different articles in three different magazines last month! The paper on Apollodorus, in the _Cheapside_, you know; and that story in the Charing Cross--'How I lost my Gingham Umbrella, and gained the Acquaintance of Mr. Gozzleton.' _So_ funny! And the exhaustive treatise on the Sources of Light, in the _Scientific Sat.u.r.day_. And think of the fuss they make about Homer, a blind old person who wrote a long rigmarole of a poem about battles, and wrote it so badly that to this day no one knows whether it's one complete poem, or a lot of odds-and-ends in the way of poetry, put together by a man with an unp.r.o.nounceable Greek name. When I think of what Valentine accomplishes in comparison to Homer, and the little notice the reviewers take of him, except to make him low-spirited by telling him that he is shallow and frivolous, I begin to think that literature must be going to the dogs."

And here Charlotte became meditative, absorbed in the contemplation of Mr. Hawkehurst's genius. Diana had begun the conversation very artfully, intending to proceed by a gentle transition from Charlotte's love affairs to her own; but the conversation was drifting away from the subject into a discussion upon literature, and the brilliant young essayist whose first adventurous flights seemed grand as the soaring of Theban eagle to this tender and admiring watcher of his skyward progress.

"Lotta," said Miss Paget, after a pause, "should you be very sorry if I were to leave you before your marriage?"

"Leave me before my marriage, Diana! Is it not arranged that you are to live with mamma, and be a daughter to her, when I am gone? And you will come and stay with Valentine and me at our cottage; and you will advise me about my house-keeping, and teach me how to be a sensible, useful, economical wife, as well as a devoted one. Leave us, Di! What have I done, or mamma, or Mr. Sheldon, or anybody, that you should talk of anything so dreadful?"

"What have you done, dear girl, dear friend, dear sister? Everything to win my undying love and grat.i.tude. You have changed me from a hard disappointed bitter-minded woman--envious, at times, even of you--into your loving and devoted friend. You have changed me from a miserable creature into a contented and hopeful one. You have taught me to forget that my childhood and youth were one long night of wretchedness and degradation. You have taught me to forgive the father who suffered my life to be what it was, and made no one poor effort to lift me out of the slough of despond to which he had sunk. I can say no more, Charlotte.

There are things that cannot be told by words."

"And you want to leave me!" said Charlotte, in accents half-wondering, half-reproachful.

"My father wants me to leave you, Lotta; and some one else--some one whom you must know and like before I can be sure I like him myself."

"Him!" cried Charlotte, with a faint shriek of surprise. "Diana, WHAT are you going to tell me?"

"A secret, Lotta; something which my father has forbidden me to tell any one, but which I will not hide from you. My poor father has found a kind friend--a friend who is almost as good to him as you are to me. How merciful Heaven is in raising up friends for outcasts! And I have seen a good deal of this gentleman who is so kind to papa, and the result is that--chiefly for papa's sake, and because I know that he is generous and brave and true, I mean papa's friend, M. Len.o.ble--I have consented to be his wife."

"Diana!" cried Charlotte, with a sternness of manner that was alarming in so gentle a creature, "it shall never be!"

"What dear?"