For some time Nancy made light of the girl"s ailments, though she watched her with unfailing attention.
"You ain"t a-done growing yet, miss, I"ll lay," she said.
"But I"m more than twenty-one, Nancy. People don"t grow after they"re of age, do they?"
"I"ve known them as have, miss; I don"t say it"s common, but it has been done. And then there"s the weakness that comes after you"ve done growing.
Girls of your age are apt to be faint and lollopy-like, as you may say; especially when they"re stived up in a smoky place like London. You ought to go to Hyley, miss, where you was born; that"s the place to set you up."
The time had come when the change was no longer matter for doubt. Day by day Charlotte grew weaker and paler; day by day that bright and joyous creature, whose presence had made an atmosphere of youth and gladness even in that prim dwelling-place, receded farther into the dimness of the past; until to think of what she had been seemed like recalling the image of the dead. Nancy marked the alteration with a strange pain, so sharp, so bitter, that its sharpness and bitterness were a perpetual perplexity to her.
"If the poor dear young thing is meant to go, there"s no need for me to fret about it all day long, and wake up sudden in the night with cold water standing out upon my forehead at the thought of it. I haven"t known her six months; and if she is pretty and sweet-spoken, it"s not my place to give way at the thoughts of losing her. She"s not my own flesh and blood; and I"ve sat by to watch them go, times and often, without feeling as I do when I see the change in her day after day. Why should it seem so dreadful to me?"
Why indeed? This was a question for which Mrs. Woolper could find no answer. She knew that the pain and horror which she felt were something more than natural, but beyond this point her thoughts refused to travel.
A superst.i.tious feeling arose at this point, to usurp the office of reason, and she accounted for the strangeness of Miss Halliday"s illness as she might have done had she lived in the sixteenth century, and been liable to the suspicion of nocturnal careerings on broomsticks.
"I"m sorry Mr. Philip"s house should be unlucky to that sweet young creature," she said to herself. "It was unlucky to the father; and now it seems as if it was going to be unlucky to the daughter. And Mr. Philip won"t be any richer for her death. Mrs. Sheldon has told me times and often that all Tom Halliday"s money went to my master when she married him, and he has doubled and trebled it by his cleverness. Miss Charlotte"s death wouldn"t bring him a sixpence."
This was the gist of Mrs. Woolper"s meditations very often nowadays. But the strange sense of perplexity, the nameless fear, the vague horror, were not to be banished from her mind. A sense of some shapeless presence for ever at her side haunted her by day and night. What was it? What did its presence portend? It was as if a figure, shrouded from head to foot, was there, dark and terrible, at her elbow, and she would not turn to meet the horror face to face. Sometimes the phantom hand lifted a corner of the veil, and the shade said, "Look at me! See who and what I am! You have seen me before. I am here again! and this time you shall not refuse to meet me face to face! I am the shadow of the horror you suspected in the past!"
The shadowy fears which oppressed Mrs. Woolper during this period did not in any way lessen her practical usefulness. From the commencement of Charlotte"s slow decline she had shown herself attentive, and even officious, in all matters relating to the invalid. With her own hands she decanted the famous port which Georgy fetched from the particular bin in Mr. Sheldon"s carefully arranged cellar. When the physician was called in, and wrote his harmless little prescription, it was Mrs. Woolper who carried the doc.u.ment to the dispensing chemist, and brought back the innocent potion, which might, peradventure, effect some slight good, and was too feeble a decoction to do any harm. Charlotte duly appreciated all this kindness; but she repeatedly a.s.sured the housekeeper that her ailments were not worthy of so much care.
It was Mrs. Woolper whom Mr. Sheldon employed to get lodgings for the family, when it had been ultimately decided that a change to the seaside was the best cure for Miss Halliday.
"I am too busy to go to Hastings myself this week," he said; "but I shall be prepared to spend a fortnight there after next Monday. What I want you to do, Nancy, is to slip down tomorrow, with a second-cla.s.s return-ticket, and look about for a nice place for us. I don"t care about being in Hastings; there"s too much c.o.c.kneyism in the place at this time of year. There"s a little village called Harold"s Hill, within a mile or so of St. Leonard"s--a dull, out-of-the-way place, but rustic and picturesque, and all that kind of thing--the sort of place that women like. Now, I"d rather stay at that place than at Hastings. So you can take a fly at the station, drive straight to Harold"s Hill, and secure the best lodgings you can get."
"You think as the change of air will do Miss Halliday good?" asked Mrs.
Woolper anxiously, after she had promised to do all her kind master required of her.
"Do I think it will do her good? Of course I do. Sea-air and sea-bathing will set her up in no time; there"s nothing particular the matter with her."
"No, Mr. Philip; that"s what bothers me about the whole thing. There"s nothing particular the matter with her; and yet she pines and dwindles, and dwindles and pines, till it makes one"s heart ache to see her."
Philip Sheldon"s face darkened, and he threw himself back in his chair with an impatient movement. If he had chosen to do so, he could have prevented that darkening of his face; but he did not consider Mrs.
Woolper a person of sufficient importance to necessitate the regulation of his countenance. What was she but an ignorant, obstinate old woman, who would most probably perish in the streets if he chose to turn her out of doors? There are men who consider their clerks and retainers such very dirt, that they would continue the forging of a bill of exchange, or complete the final touches of a murder, with a junior clerk putting coals on the fire, or an errand-boy standing cap in hand on the threshold of the door. They cannot realize the fact that dirt such as this is flesh and blood, and may denounce them by-and-by in a witness-box.
Of all contingencies Mr. Sheldon least expected that this old woman could prove troublesome to him--this abject wretch, whose daily bread depended on his will. He could not imagine that there are circ.u.mstances under which such abject creatures will renounce their daily bread, and die of hunger, rather than accept the means of life from one hateful hand.
"If you want to know anything about Miss Halliday"s illness," he said in his hardest voice, and with his hardest look, "you had better apply to Dr. Doddleson, the physician who has prescribed for her. I do not attend her, you see, and I am in no way responsible for her health. When I was attending her father you favoured me by doubting my skill, if I judged rightly as to your tone and manner on one occasion. I don"t want to be brought to book by you, Mrs. Woolper, about Miss Halliday"s altered looks or Miss Halliday"s illness; I have nothing to do with either."
"How should I think you had, sir? Don"t be angry with me, or hard upon me, Mr. Phil. I nursed you when you was but a baby, and you"re nearer and dearer to me than any other master could be. Why, I have but to shut my eyes now, and I can feel your little hand upon my neck, as it used to lie there, so soft and dear. And then I look down at the hand on the table, strong and dark, and clenched so firm, and I ask myself, Can it be the same? For the sake of that time, Mr. Phil, don"t be hard upon me. There"s nothing I wouldn"t do to serve you; there"s nothing you could do that would turn me from you. There"s no man living in this world, sir, that oughtn"t to be glad to know of one person that nothing can turn from him."
"That"s a very fine sentiment, my good soul," replied Mr. Sheldon coolly; "but, you see, it"s only an _ex parte_ statement; and as the case stands there is no opportunity for the display of those fine feelings you talk about. You happen to want a home in your old age, and I happen to be able to give you a home. Under such circ.u.mstances, your own good sense will show you that all sentimental talk about standing by me, and not turning away from me, is absolute bosh."
The old woman sighed heavily. She had offered her master a fidelity which involved the abnegation of all impulses of her own heart and mind, and he rejected her love and her service. And then, after the first dreary sense of his coldness, she felt better pleased that it should be so. The man who spoke to her in this harsh uncompromising way could have no cause to fear her. In the mind of such a man there could surely be no secret chamber within which she had, with his knowledge, almost penetrated.
"I won"t trouble you any more, sir," she said mournfully. "I dare say I"m a foolish old woman."
"You are, Nancy. We don"t get wiser as we grow older, you see; and when we let our tongues wag, we"re apt to talk nonsense. The quieter you keep your tongue, the better for yourself, in more ways than one. To a useful old woman about the place I"ve no objection; but a chattering old woman I will not have at any price."
After this everything was settled in the most agreeable manner. Nancy Woolper"s journey to Hastings was fully arranged; and early the next morning she started, brisk and active, in spite of her sixty-eight years of age. She returned at night, having secured very pleasant lodgings at the village of Harold"s Hill.
"And a very sweet place it is, my dear Miss Lotta," she said to Charlotte the next day, when she described her adventures. "The apartments are at a farmhouse overlooking the sea; and the smell of the cows under your windows, and the sea-breezes blowing across the farmyard, can"t fail to bring the colour back to your pretty cheeks, and the brightness back to your pretty eyes."
CHAPTER IV.
VALENTINE"S SKELETON.
The idea of this visit to the Suss.e.x village by the sea seemed delightful to every one except Gustave Len.o.ble, who was still in town, and who thought it a hard thing that he should be deprived of Diana"s society during an entire fortnight, for the sake of this sickly Miss Halliday.
For the rest, there was hope and gladness in the thought of this change of dwelling. Charlotte languished for fresher breezes and more rustic prospects than the breezes and prospects of Bayswater; Diana looked to the sea-air as the doctor of doctors for her fading friend; and Valentine cherished the same hope.
On Valentine Hawkehurst the burden of an unlooked-for sorrow had weighed very heavily. To see this dear girl, who was the beginning, middle, and end of all his hopes, slowly fading before his eyes, was, of all agonies that could have fallen to his lot, the sharpest and most bitter. Not Ugolino sitting silent amidst his famishing children--not Helen, when she would fain that the tempest had swept her from earth"s surface on that evil day when she was born--not Penelope, when she cried on Diana, the high-priestess of death, to release her from the weariness of her days--not Agamemnon, when the fatal edict had gone forth, and his fair young daughter looked into his face, and asked him if it was true that she was to die--not one of these typical mourners could have suffered a keener torture than that which rent this young man"s heart, as he marked the stealthy steps of the Destroyer drawing nearer and nearer the woman he loved. Of all possible calamities, this was the last he had ever contemplated. Sometimes, in moments of doubt or despondency, he had thought it possible that poverty, the advice of friends, caprice or inconstancy on the part of Charlotte herself, should sever them. But among the possible enemies to his happiness he had never counted Death.
What had Death to do with so fair and happy a creature as Charlotte Halliday? she who, until some two months before this time, might have been the divine Hygieia in person--so fresh was her youthful bloom, so buoyant her step, so bright her glances. Valentine"s hardest penance was the necessity for the concealment of his anxiety. The idea that Charlotte"s illness might be--nay, must be--for the greater part an affair of the nerves was always paramount in his mind. He and Diana had talked of the subject together whenever they found an opportunity for so doing, and had comforted themselves with the a.s.surance that the nerves alone were to blame; and they were the more inclined to think this from the conduct of Dr. Doddleson, on that physician"s visits to Miss Halliday. Mrs. Sheldon had been present on each occasion, and to Mrs.
Sheldon alone had the physician given utterance to his opinion of the case. That opinion, though expressed with a certain amount of professional dignity, amounted to very little. "Our dear young friend wanted strength; and what we had to do was to give our dear young friend strength--vital power. Yes--er--um, that was the chief point. And what kind of diet might our dear young friend take now? Was it a light diet, a little roast mutton--not too much done, but not underdone? O dear, no.
And a light pudding? what he would call--if he might be permitted to have his little joke--a nursery pudding." And then the old gentleman had indulged in a senile chuckle, and patted Charlotte"s head with his fat old fingers. "And our dear young friend"s room, now, was it a large room?--good! and what was the aspect now, south?--good again! nothing better, unless, perhaps, south-west; but, of course, everyone"s rooms can"t look south-west. A little tonic draught, and gentle daily exercise in that nice garden, will set our dear young friend right again.
Our temperament is nervous we are a sensitive plant, and want care." And then the respectable septuagenarian took his fee, and shuffled off to his carriage. And this was all that Mrs. Sheldon could tell Diana, or Nancy Woolper, both of whom questioned her closely about her interview with the doctor. To Diana and to Valentine there was hope to be gathered from the very vagueness of the physician"s opinion. If there had been anything serious the matter, the medical adviser must needs have spoken more seriously. He came again and again. He found the pulse a little weaker, the patient a little more nervous, with a slight tendency to hysteria, and so on; but he still declared that there were no traces of organic disease, and he still talked of Miss Halliday"s ailments with a cheery easy-going manner that was very rea.s.suring.
In his moments of depression Valentine pinned his faith upon Dr.
Doddleson. Without organic disease, he told himself, his darling could not perish. He looked for Dr. Doddleson"s name in the Directory, and took comfort from the fact of that physician"s residence in a fashionable West End square. He took further comfort from the splendour of the doctor"s equipage, as depicted to him by Mrs. Sheldon; and from the doctor"s age and experience, as copiously described by the same lady.
"There is only one fact that I have ever reproached myself with in relation to my poor Tom," said Georgy, who, in talking to strangers of her first husband, was apt to impress them with the idea that she was talking of a favourite cat; "and that is, the youthfulness of the doctor Mr. Sheldon employed. Of course I am well aware that Mr. Sheldon would not have consulted the young man if he had not thought him clever; but I could lay my head upon my pillow at night with a clearer conscience if poor Tom"s doctor had been an older and more experienced person. Now, that"s what I like about Dr. Doddleson. There"s a gravity--a weight--about a man of that age which inspires one with immediate confidence. I"m sure the serious manner with which he questioned me about Lotta"s diet, and the aspect of her room, was quite delightful."
In Dr. Doddleson, under Providence, Valentine was fain to put his trust.
He did not know that the worthy doctor was one of those harmless inanities who, by the aid of money and powerful connections, are sometimes forced into a position which nature never intended them to occupy. Among the real working men of that great and admirable brotherhood, the medical profession, Dr. Doddleson had no rank; but he was the pet physician of fashionable dowagers suffering from chronic laziness or periodical attacks of ill-humour. For the spleen or the vapours no one was a better adviser than Dr. Doddleson. He could afford to waste half an hour upon the asking of questions which the fair patient"s maid might as well have asked, and the suggestions of remedies which any intelligent abigail could as easily have suggested. Elderly ladies believed in him because he was pompous and ponderous, lived in an expensive neighbourhood, and drove a handsome equipage. He wore mourning-rings left him by patients who never had anything particular the matter with them, and who, dying of sheer old age, or sheer over-eating, declared with their final gasp that Dr. Doddleson had been the guardian angel of their frail lives during the last twenty years.
This was the man who, of all the medical profession resident in London, Mr. Sheldon had selected as his stepdaughter"s medical adviser in a case so beyond common experience, that a man of wide practice and keen perception was especially needed for its treatment.
Dr. Doddleson, accustomed to attribute the fancied ailments of fashionable dowagers to want of tone, and accustomed to prescribe the mildest preparations with satisfaction to his patients and profit to himself dwelt upon the same want of tone, and prescribed the same harmless remedies, in his treatment of Charlotte Halliday. When he found her no better--nay, even worse--after some weeks of this treatment, he was puzzled; and for one harmless remedy he subst.i.tuted another harmless remedy, and waited another week to see what effect the second harmless remedy might have on this somewhat obstinate young person.
And this was the broken reed to which Valentine clung in the day of his trouble.
Bitter were his days and sleepless were his nights in this dark period of his existence. He went to the Bayswater villa nearly every day now. It was no longer time for etiquette or ceremony. His darling was fading day by day; and it was his right to watch the slow sad change, and, if it were possible, to keep the enemy at arm"s-length. Every day he came to spend one too brief hour with his dear love; every day he greeted her with the same fond smile, and beguiled her with the same hopeful talk. He brought her new books and flowers, and any foolish trifle which he fancied might beguile her thoughts from the contemplation of that mysterious malady which seemed beyond the reach of science and Dr.
Doddleson. He sat and talked with her of the future--that future which in their secret thoughts both held to be a sweet sad fable--the hyperborean garden of their dreams. And after spending this too sweet, too bitter hour with his beloved, Mr. Hawkehurst would diplomatise in order to have a little talk with Diana as he left the house. Did Diana think his dear girl better to-day, or worse--surely not worse? He had fancied she had more colour, more of her old gaiety of manner. She had seemed a little feverish; but that might be the excitement of his visit. And so on, and so on, with sad and dreary repet.i.tion.
And then, having gone away from that house with an aching heart, the young magazine-writer went back to his lodgings, and plunged into the dashing essay or the smart pleasant story which was to const.i.tute his monthly contribution to the _Cheapside_ or the _Charing Cross_. Gaiety, movement, rollicking, Harry Lorrequer-like spirits were demanded for the _Cheapside_; a graceful union of brilliancy and depth was required for the _Charing Cross_. And, O, be sure the critics lay in wait to catch the young scribbler tripping! An anachronism here, a secondhand idea there, and the _West End Wasp_ shrieked its war-whoop in an occasional note; or the _Minerva_ published a letter from a correspondent in the Scilly Islands, headed "Another Literary Jack Sheppard," to say that in his "Imperial Dictionary" he had discovered with profound indignation a whole column of words feloniously and mendaciously appropriated by the writer of such and such an article in the _Cheapside_. While the sunlight of hope had shone upon him, Mr. Hawkehurst had found the hardest work pleasant. Was he not working for _her_ sake? Did not his future union with that dear girl depend upon his present industry? It had seemed to him as if she stood at his elbow while he wrote, as Pallas stood beside Achilles at the council, invisible to all but her favourite. It was that mystic presence which lent swiftness to his pen. When he was tired and depressed, the thought of Charlotte had revived his courage and vanquished his fatigue. Pleasant images crowded upon him when he thought of her. What could be easier than for him to write a love-story? He had but to create a shadowy Charlotte for his heroine, and the stream of foolish lover"s babble flowed from his pen perennial and inexhaustible.
To his reading she lent a charm and a grace that made the most perfect poetry still more poetical. It was not Achilles and Helen who met on Mount Ida, but Valentine and Charlotte; it was not Paolo and Francesca who read the fatal book together, but Valentine and Charlotte, in an unregenerate and mediaeval state of mind. The mere coincidence of a name made the "Sorrows of Werter" delightful. The all-pervading presence was everywhere and in everything. His religion was not Pantheism, but Charlottism.
Now all was changed. A brooding care was with him in every moment. The mystic presence was still close to him in every hour of his lonely days and nights; but that image, which had been fair and blooming as the incarnation of youth and spring-time, was now a pale shrouded phantom which he dared not contemplate. He still wrote on--for it is marvellous how the pen will travel and the mind will project itself into the shadow-world of fancy while cankerous care gnaws the weary heart. Nay, it is perhaps at these times that the imagination is most active; for the world of shadows is a kind of refuge for the mind that dare not dwell upon realities. Who can say what dull, leaden, care may have weighed down the heart of William Shakespeare when his mind conceived that monster of a poet"s grand imaginings, Oth.e.l.lo! There is the flavour of racking care in that mighty creation. The strong soul wantonly tortured by a sordid wretch; the n.o.ble spirit distraught, the honourable life wrecked for so poor a motive; that sense of the "something in this world amiss," which the poet, of all other creatures, feels most keenly.
With grief and fear as his constant companions, Valentine Hawkehurst toiled on bravely, patiently. Hope had not deserted him; but between hope and fear the contest was unceasing. Sometimes hope had the best of it for a while, and the toiler comforted himself with the thought that this dark cloud would pa.s.s anon from the horizon of his life; and then he counted his gains, and found that the fruit of his labours was increasing monthly, as his name gained rank among the band of young _litterateurs_.
The day when he might count upon that income which Mr. Sheldon demanded as his qualification for matrimony did not appear far distant. Given a certain amount of natural ability, and the industrious and indefatigable young writer may speedily emerge from obscurity, and take his place in the great army of those gallant soldiers whose only weapon is the pen.
Whatever good fortune had come to Valentine Hawkehurst he had worked for with all honesty of purpose. The critics were not slow to remark that he worked at a white-hot haste, and must needs be a shallow pretender because he was laborious and indefatigable.
Before the beginning of Charlotte"s slow decline he had fancied himself the happiest of men. There were more deposit-receipts in his desk. The nest-egg, about the hatching whereof there had been such cackling and crowing some months ago, was now one of many eggs; for the hard-working scribbler had no leisure in which to be extravagant, had he been so minded. The purchase of a half-circlet of diamonds for his betrothed"s slim finger had been his only folly.