Charlotte's Inheritance Part 55

"Well, darling, the books in dark-brown calf, and the horse, and the gla.s.s porch, may all be ours in the future; but the money was only a dream--it has melted away, dear."

"Is that all?" asked Charlotte. "Why, I dare say the day will come when you will be as rich as Sir Walter Scott."

"In the meantime I have something to give you instead of the money."

"Indeed!"

"Yes; a cousin. Will that do as well, my love?"

"A cousin? I shall like her very much if she is nice."

"The cousin I mean is a gentleman."

"But where is he to come from?" cried Charlotte, laughing. Has he dropped from the moon? The only relations I have the world are Uncle and Aunt Mercer. How can you pretend to find me a cousin?"

"Do you remember telling me of your grandmother's only sister--Susan Meynell?"

"Yes," said Charlotte, with a sudden blush; "I remember."

"That Miss Meynell married a gentleman of Normandy, and left one only child, a son. His name is Gustave Len.o.ble, and he is standing by your side. He is heir-at-law to a very large fortune, which it was once supposed you could claim. Are you sorry, Lotta, to find a kinsman and lose a fortune?--and are you contented to begin the world with no hope except in your husband's patience and courage?"

"And genius!" cried Charlotte, with enthusiasm.

The sweet, blinding glamour of love shone upon this young scribbler, and she believed that he was indeed worthy to take rank among the greatest of that grand brotherhood of which he was so humble a member. She looked up at him with the prettiest confidence; her clinging hand clasped his with love and trust immeasurable. He felt and knew that love like this was a treasure beside which the Reverend John Haygarth's h.o.a.rded thousands must needs seem but sorry dross.

After this there was much explanation and congratulation. Gustave Len.o.ble was delighted to claim so fair a kinswoman.

"Thou art like my eldest, my cousin," he said; "Diana saw the likeness at the Sacre Coeur when she beheld my daughter; and I too saw my eldest's look in thine eyes when I first met thee. Remember, it was convened between us that Cotenoir should be a home for thee and for Hawkehurst before I knew what link bound thee to the house of Len.o.ble. Now thou and thy husband will be of our family."

Diana was bewildered, grieved, indignant with the father who had deceived her by his studious suppression of the truth. She found herself placed in the position of rival to Charlotte, and the whole proceeding seemed to her mean and treacherous.

But it was no time for remonstrance or open expression of indignant feeling. Her father's days were numbered. She knew this, and she held her peace. Nor did Mrs. Sheldon utter any word of complaint, though the disappointment she experienced upon hearing this revelation was very keen. The idea of the four or five thousand pounds which were to come to Charlotte had been a consolation to her in the midst of that confusion and desolation which had newly come upon her life. She left Knightsbridge that evening somewhat depressed in spirits, and half inclined to be angry with Charlotte and her husband for their gaiety of manner, and evident happiness in each other's society.

"It seems hard to have to begin the world at my age," she murmured hopelessly, "after being accustomed to have everything nice about me, as I had at the Lawn; though I own that the trouble and care of the servants was wearing me to the grave."

"Dear mamma," exclaimed Charlotte tenderly, "there is no fear of trouble or poverty for you or for us. Valentine has plenty of money, and is on the high road to securing a comfortable income. Authors do not starve in garrets now, you know, as they used to do, poor things, when Doctor Johnson ate his dinner in a cave, or something dreadful of that kind; and when Sir Richard Steele thought it quite a wonderful thing to get a pound of tea for his wife. And Valentine's heart is in his profession, and he will work for us."

"As long as I have a hand that can write, and a brain that can guide my pen," interposed Mr. Hawkehurst, gaily. "I have given hostages to Fortune. I can face the hazard boldly I feel as confident and as happy as if we lived in the golden age, when there was neither care nor toil for innocent mankind, and all the brightest things of earth were the spontaneous gift of the G.o.ds."

CHAPTER V.

BOHEMIAN INDEPENDENCE.

Monsieur and Madame Len.o.ble went to Brighton for their honeymoon. A letter or a telegraphic message would bring them thence swiftly to the bedside of the dying Captain, should the last fatal change set in suddenly. Diana had wished to stay with her father, but Horatio insisted upon the honeymoon trip, and that everything should be done in a correct and gentlemanly manner.

"You can engage rooms at the Albion," Captain Paget had said to his son-in-law a few days before the quiet wedding. "The house is extremely comfortable; and you will be received by a compatriot. The proprietor is a Frenchman, and a very gentlemanly person, I a.s.sure you; the _cuisine_ irreproachable. I remember the old Steyne when Mrs. FitzHerbert lived close by, and received all the best people, in the days when the c.o.c.kney had not yet taken possession of Brighthelmstone, and the Chinese dragons and paG.o.das were bright and fresh in the Pavilion."

To Brighton, therefore, the bride and bridegroom departed; Diana attended by a maid, an appanage which the Captain had insisted upon. Poor Diana was sorely puzzled as to what she should find for the maid to do when her hair had been dressed early in the morning, and her costume laid out in state for the day.

"I think I must buy some handkerchiefs for her to hem," she said to Gustave; "it will be quite dreadful for her to have nothing to do all day long."

The weather was warm and bright. The sea danced and sparkled under the windows. Gustave was always in the same happy frame of mind. An elegant landau had been secured for the period of their visit, and a pair of capital horses carried them out on long and pleasant expeditions to the pretty Suss.e.x villages, or across the broad bare downs, beyond which the sea stretched blue and bright.

In the evening, when the lamp was lighted and the urn hissed gaily, Diana felt that she and her husband were at home. It was the first home she had known--the first time she had been sole mistress and centre of a household. She looked back at all the old desolation, the dreary shifting from lodging to lodging, the degradation, the self-abas.e.m.e.nt, the dull apathy of despair; and then she looked across at her husband as he lounged in his easy-chair, contemplating her with dreamy adoring eye, in a kind of lazy worship; and she knew that for this man she was the centre of the universe, the very keystone in the arch of life.

She stretched out her hand to him with a smile, and he pressed it fondly to his lips. There were twinkling jewels upon the slender fingers; for the prettiest shop in Brighton--the brightest shop in Brighton--had been ransacked that morning by the fond, frivolous, happy husband, as pleased to bedeck his wife as a child to dress her last new doll.

"How can I ever be worthy of so much affection, Gustave!" she exclaimed, as he kissed the twinkling fingers.

And it did indeed seem to her that for this free gift of love she could never render a sufficient recompense.

"Thou wilt make Cotenoir a home," he said; "thou knowest not how I have sighed for a home. This room, with the lamplight shining on thy face, and thy white hands moving about the teacups, and thy sweet smile, which greets me every now and then when thou lookest by here,--it is more of home than I have ever known since I left Beaubocage, that modest dwelling where lived those two angels of kindness, my aunt and my grandmother."

In one of those long pleasant drives to a distant village nestling under the lee of a steep hill, the husband and wife had much serious talk about the position of the former with reference to the Haygarth estate. The result of that conversation was shown in a letter which Charlotte Hawkehurst received the next day from her friend Diana Len.o.ble.

"Albion Hotel, Brighton.

"EVER DEAR LOTTA,--Gustave and I have discussed the Haygarth business with great satisfaction to ourselves, since it transpired in the course of our conversation that we are both of one mind in the matter. It is agreed between us that, as he is very well off already, and as he never hoped or expected to inherit a fortune from his maternal ancestor, it is only just that he should divide this unlooked-for wealth with his dear cousin, whose claim to that inheritance he recognizes as equal to his own; the mere fact of seniority making only a legal and not a moral difference in the degree of relationship to the Reverend John Haygarth.

Do you understand, darling?--_you_ are to have half this money. My husband will not step in between you and good fortune. I cannot tell you how happy this determination of Gustave's has made me. I felt myself in a manner base and ungrateful when I thought I was to share wealth that might have been yours; but I ought to have better understood the justice of my husband's mind. And now, dearest, all will be arranged very simply; Gustave will come to London and see his lawyers, and execute some kind of deed, and the whole affair will be settled.

"We have had some charming drive," &c. &c.

Here the young wife branched off into a description of the simple pleasures of their honeymoon holiday.

This letter was answered by Valentine Hawkehurst in person. He came down to Brighton to thank his friends for their generous desire to enrich his wife, and to decline, on her part, any share in John Haygarth's wealth.

It was in vain that Gustave and Diana argued the point, Mr. Hawkehurst was fixed as fate.

"Believe me, it is better as it is," he said. "Charlotte and I have arrived at this conviction with all due thought and deliberation. We are both young, and the world is all before us. There is much in the past that I have to redeem, as Diana well knows. It is better that I should fight the battle of life unaided, and rise from the ranks by right of my merit as a soldier. If ever we have need of help--if ever I find myself breaking down--you may be sure that it is to you I shall come. By and by, if Providence gives me children to work for, I will refuse no bounty that you may bestow on them. Their future may be rendered secure by your generosity, if you please, Len.o.ble; they will be your kindred. But for an alien like myself there is no discipline so wholesome as honest hard work. I am as rich as John Milton when he set up a school in St. Bride's Churchyard."

To this resolution Mr. Hawkehurst adhered with a gentle firmness.

"Thou art chivalrous like Don Quixote," said Gustave Len.o.ble; "but it shall be as thou wouldest. Touch there."

He offered his hand, which the other grasped with all heartiness.

"I will be G.o.dfather to thy little first one, and I will settle on him ten thousand pounds before he cuts his first tooth," said Gustave decisively.

CHAPTER VI.

BEYOND THE VEIL.

Diana and her husband did not linger long at Brighton; they went back to town in time to see the last of that old wayfarer whose troubled journey came to so peaceful an ending. It was a very calm haven in which this battered old privateer lay at anchor after life's tempestuous course; but to the Captain himself it seemed a hard thing that he should not have been permitted one brief cruise upon that summer sea which danced so gaily beneath the keel of the Len.o.bles' prosperous bark.