"Father, father, you here?" said the boy. "You here?" echoed the girl, and the whole cavalcade drew up in front of Charlotte and the thin clergyman. The boy in an instant was on his father"s knee, and the girl, helping herself mightily by Charlotte"s dress, had got on the bench.
The baby seeing this began to cry. The small nurse seemed incapable of action, and Charlotte herself had to come to the rescue. She lifted the little seven months old creature out of its carriage, and placed it in its father"s arms.
He raised his eyes gratefully to her face and placed his arm round the baby.
"Oh! I"m falling," said the girl. "This seat is so slippy, may I sit on your knee?"
It seemed the most natural thing in the world for Charlotte to take this strange, shabbily dressed little girl into her embrace.
The child began to stroke down and admire her soft furs.
"Aren"t they lovely?" she said. "Oh, Harold, look! Feel "em, Harold; they"re like p.u.s.s.ies."
Harold, absorbed with his father, turned his full blue eyes round gravely and fixed them not on the furs, but on the strange lady"s face.
"Father," he said in a slow, solemn tone, "may I kiss that pretty lady?"
"My dear boy, no, no. I am ashamed of you. Now run away, children; go on with your walk. Nurse, take baby."
The children were evidently accustomed to implicit obedience. They went without a word.
"But I will kiss Harold first," said Charlotte Harman, and she stooped down and pressed her lips to the soft round cheek.
"Thank you," said the clergyman. Again he looked into her face and smiled.
The smile on his careworn face reminded Charlotte of the smile on St.
Stephen"s face, when he was dying. It was unearthly, angelic; but it was also very fleeting. Presently he added in a grave tone,----
"You have evidently the great gift of attracting the heart of a little child. Pardon me if I add a hope that you may never lose it."
"Is that possible?" asked Charlotte.
"Yes; when you lose the child spirit, the power will go."
"Oh! then I hope it never will," she replied.
"It never will if you keep the Christ bright within you," he answered.
Then he raised his hat to her, smiled again, and walked away.
He was a strange man, and Charlotte felt attracted as well as repelled.
She was proud, and at another time and from other lips such words would have been received with disdain. But this queer, shadowy-looking clergyman looked like an unearthly visitant. She watched his rather weak footsteps, as he walked quietly away in the northern direction through the park. Then she got up and prepared to return home. But this little incident had sobered her. She was not unhappy; but she now felt very grave. The child spirit! She must keep it alive, and the Christ must dwell bright within her.
Charlotte"s temperament was naturally religious. Her nature was so frank and n.o.ble that she could not but drink in the good as readily as the flower receives the dew; but she had come to this present fulness of her youthful vigor without one trial being sent to test the gold. She entered the house after her long walk to find Hinton waiting for her.
CHAPTER XII.
FOUR MONTHS HENCE.
Hinton had gone away the day before rather disturbed by Charlotte"s manner. He had found her, for the first time since their betrothal, in trouble. Wishing to comfort, she had repelled him. He was a strong man, as strong in his own way as Charlotte was in hers, and this power of standing alone scarcely pleased him in her. His was the kind of nature which would be supposed to take for its other half one soft and clinging. Contrary to the established rule, however, he had won this proud and stately Charlotte. She thought him perfection: he was anything but that. But he had good points, there was nothing mean or base about him. There were no secrets hidden away in his life. His was an honorable and manly nature. But he had one little fault, running like a canker through the otherwise healthy fruit of his heart. While Charlotte was frank and open as the day, he was reserved; not only reserved, but suspicious. All the men who knew Hinton said what a capital lawyer he would make; he had all the qualities necessary to insure success in his profession. Above all things in the world secrets oppressed, irritated, and yet interested him. Once having heard of any little possible mystery, he could not rest until it was solved.
This had been his character from a boy. His own brothers and sisters had confided in him, not because they found him particularly sympathetic, or particularly clever, not because they loved him so much, but simply because they could not help themselves. John would have found out all the small childish matter without their aid; it was better, safer to take him into confidence. Then, to do him justice, he was true as steel; for though he must discover, he would scorn to betray.
On the white, untroubled sheet of Charlotte Harmon"s heart no secrets yet had been written. Consequently, though she had been engaged for many months to John Hinton, she had never found out this peculiarity about him. Those qualities of openness and frankness, so impossible to his own nature, had attracted him most of all to this beautiful young woman.
Never until yesterday had there been breath or thought of concealment about her. But then--then he had found her in trouble. Full of sympathy he had drawn near to comfort, and she had repelled him. She had heard of something which troubled her, which troubled her to such an extent that the very expression of her bright face had changed, and yet this something was to be a secret from him--true, only until the following day, but a whole twenty-four hours seemed like for ever to Hinton in his impatience. Before he could even expostulate with her she had run off, doubtless to confide her care to another. Perhaps the best way to express John Hinton"s feelings would be to say that he was very cross as he returned to his chambers in Lincoln"s Inn.
All that evening, through his dreams all that night, all the following morning as he tried to engage himself over his law books, he pondered on Charlotte"s secret. Such pondering must in a nature like his excite apprehension. He arrived on the next day at the house in Prince"s Gate with his mind full of gloomy forebodings. His face was so grave that it scarcely cleared up at the sight of the bright one raised to meet it. He was full of the secret of yesterday; Charlotte, in all the joy of the secret of to-day, had already forgotten it.
"Oh, I have had such a walk!" she exclaimed; "and a little bit of an adventure--a pretty adventure; and now I am starving. Come into the dining-room and have some lunch."
"You look very well," answered her lover, "and I left you so miserable yesterday!"
"Yesterday!" repeated Charlotte; she had forgotten yesterday. "Oh, yes, I had heard something very disagreeable: but when I looked into the matter, it turned out to be nothing."
"You will tell me all about it, dear?"
"Well, I don"t know, John. I would of course if there was anything to tell; but do come and have some lunch, I cannot even mention something else much more important until I have had some lunch."
John Hinton frowned. Even that allusion to something much more important did not satisfy him. He must know this other thing. What! spend twenty-four hours of misery, and not learn what it was all about in the end! Charlotte"s happiness, however, could not but prove infectious, and the two made merry over their meal, and not until they found themselves in Charlotte"s own special sanctum did Hinton resume his grave manner.
Then he began at once.
"Now, Charlotte, you will tell me why you looked so grave and scared yesterday. I have been miserable enough thinking of it ever since. I don"t understand why you did not confide in me at once."
"Dear John," she said--she saw now that he had been really hurt--"I would not give you pain for worlds, my dearest. Yes, I was much perplexed, I was even very unhappy for the time. A horrid doubt had been put into my head, but it turned out nothing, nothing whatever. Let us forget it, dear John; I have something much more important to tell you."
"Yes, afterwards, but you will tell me this, even though it did turn out of no consequence."
"Please, John dear, I would rather not. I was a.s.sailed by a most unworthy suspicion. It turned out nothing, nothing at all. I would rather, seeing it was all a myth, you never knew of it."
"And I would rather know, Charlotte; the myth shall be dismissed from mind, too, but I would rather be in your full confidence."
"My full confidence?" she repeated; the expression pained her. She looked hard at Hinton; his words were very quietly spoken, but there was a cloud on his brow. "You shall certainly have my full confidence," she said after that brief pause; "which will you hear first, what gave me pain yesterday, or what brings me joy to-day?"
"What gave you pain yesterday."
There is no doubt she had hoped he would have made the latter choice, but seeing he did not she submitted at once, sitting, not as was her wont close to his side, but on a chair opposite. Hinton sat with his back to the light, but it fell full on Charlotte, and he could see every line of her innocent and n.o.ble face as she told her tale. Having got to tell it, she did so in few but simple words; Mrs. Home"s story coming of a necessity first, her Uncle Jasper"s explanation last. When the whole tale was told, she paused, then said,--
"You see there was nothing in it."
"I see," answered Hinton. This was his first remark. He had not interrupted the progress of the narrative by a single observation; then he added, "But I think, if even your father does not feel disposed to help her, that we, you and I, Charlotte, ought to do something for Mrs.
Home."
"Oh, John dear, how you delight me! How good and n.o.ble you are! Yes, my heart aches for that poor mother; yes, we will help her. You and I, how very delightful it will be!"
Now she came close to her lover and kissed him, and he returned her embrace.