University of Virginia Library

23. XXIII.
PROSPECTS.

Thus Charlotte had found not only two skeletons in Mr. Longman's
house, but there was a fine promise of another coming; for
in truth she placed so little confidence in Mrs. Sperkley's discretion,
that she expected nothing more than to see Mr. Robert
Greenwich, immediately on his return from Quebec with the travelling
watch-trader.

In the mean time, her friends had succeeded in finding a position
for her as a companion to a wealthy dowager. The news
was imparted to her immediately after the departure of the
duchess. It only remained for her to see the lady, and, if they
were mutually pleased with each other, to accept the situation.
The following day was fixed for the interview.

Mrs. De Rohan was a person of benevolent aspect and mild
address. Charlotte entered her presence with fear and trembling;
but a smile reässured her; she was delighted with the
thought of attending upon so kind a lady; and her only apprehension
now was, that her services might not be accepted.

“I see but one difficulty in the way,” observed the dowager.
“You say the more quiet and retired your life, the better. Now,
I intend soon to commence a series of journeys, which will terminate
in the good Old Country, in the course of a year or two; and
I shall expect you to accompany me.”

Charlotte's pulse leaped with joy. With nothing to bind
her to the past but ties that her spirit longed to sever, it is no
wonder that she reached out the eager hand of welcome to
the future smiling from the cloud which had darkened before
her so long.

Yet the joy was tempered with deep and saddening thoughts;
and may we not guess that the image of one she loved rose tremulously
before her then?

That night Charlotte dreamed of Hector. She went with Mrs.
De Rohan to San Francisco, where she found him waiting for her
under some door-yard trees, which bore a remarkable resemblance
to those in front of his father's house. His voice and
smile were real; and all things glowed with a happy blue-and-golden
light, — except the weather, which Charlotte found very
cold. It was so cold that she awoke; when she discovered the
fresh morning air blowing upon her bed. She had left her
window partly open, on retiring, and the wind had changed during
the night.

So much for her dream; but all that morning Hector's image
haunted her; and she chided herself, not only for thinking of
him, but for entertaining such fancies even in a dream.

Mr. Longman sent for her to visit his unfortunate son.

“He has somehow conceived the notion that you are going to
desert him,” said the old gentleman, in his subdued voice. “You
alone have any influence with him; and I have faith to think
that, if you would consent to remain with us, his reason might be
restored. I know what a sacrifice it will be for you; but, if gratitude
can repay you —”

Tears blurred Mr. Longman's vision; his white eyelashes
winked them away, but he had forgotten just what he was saying,
and failed to complete the sentence. His words troubled Charlotte;
and, having paid Edward a visit, and rendered him quiet
and obedient to the wishes of his friends, she withdrew to her
chamber to consider what it was her duty to do.

The engagement with Mrs. De Rohan seemed too advantageous
to be abandoned. It promised freedom and a new life. On the
other hand, if she could work a vital benefit to any fellow unfortunate,
was the opportunity to be neglected?

She determined to dismiss the subject from her thoughts until
the following day, and sat down to write a letter to Mrs. Dunbury.
She had not finished the sheet, when a servant appeared,
to inform her that there was a gentleman below, waiting to see

her. She could scarce refrain from uttering a cry of distress;
but instantly her mind was made up; she determined not to go
down.

“He did not give his name,” said the servant.

“It was unnecessary,” replied Charlotte. “No gentleman
would call on me whom I wish to see to-day. Say to him, I am
engaged.”

She was incensed against herself because Robert Greenwich
still had power to unstring her nerves, and quicken the movements
of her timid heart. She did not know how agitated she was
until the servant had disappeared, and she once more took up
her pen to write. In a moment, the subject she had been
weighing in her mind that morning was decided. “I will go with
Mrs. De Rohan. Then let him follow me to the ends of the
earth, if he will!”

The servant reäppeared. “The gentleman's compliments;
and if Miss Woods is engaged, he will wait in the parlor until
she is ready to see him.”

“What effrontery! Let him wait, then! — No!” she exclaimed,
calling the servant back; “I will go down!”

Five minutes later, she entered the parlor. Her color was
heightened; an expression of pain and dread was written upon
her brow; but her large eyes beamed with a clear and steady
light, and her step, her carriage, and the curving of her mouth,
were queenly.

She turned to the corner where the visitor stood. He had
been pacing the floor, and on her entrance had halted where she
found him; but, after a moment's hesitation, he advanced and sank
upon his knee at her feet.

“Charlotte!” breathed a voice whose tones thrilled in every
fibre of her frame.

“Hector!” she cried out, in wild and eager surprise; then
turning with a gesture of despair, she fell forward upon the sofa,
hiding her face from his sight.

He went and stood by her side. He bent over her, putting
aside the curls from her cheek. He knelt again and kissed the

hand that hung over the arm of the sofa. His very touch
betrayed the tumult in his breast.

“Speak to me! look at me! Why do you turn from me so?”

“I thought,” she said, in a stifled and broken voice, “I
thought you were — another!”

“Perhaps, then, had you known, you would not have deigned
to see me!”

“Yes; I will be plain and true with you. I would, but I
should have been prepared; I should not have been surprised by
this weakness.”

“You had no presentiment, ever so shadowy and vague, that
I would come?”

“None!” exclaimed Charlotte; “or, if I had, I dismissed it
as the vainest dream of my life.”

Hector seated himself, and laid his hand upon her arm with a
touch that thrilled her still. “Tell me, Charlotte, are you not
conscious of an influence that chains you to me, and me to you,
inevitably? Go down into the deepest and purest waters of your
heart, and find the response!”

“If ever I thought so,” answered Charlotte, “then I was
deceived.”

“I believe in one only great and overmastering love!” said
Hector. “By its magnetism soul is bound with soul, as sphere
to sphere in the heavens. It has an astrology of its own, that
reveals heart to heart at any distances. If in my wanderings
from you I have not felt your spirit following me, and drawing
me back, — if when furthest from you I have not been with you,
and you with me, continually, — then there is no wisdom or virtue
in me!”

“O, but when I told you my history, your love was not proof
against that! You said it placed life and death between us.
You left me with those words. I did not blame you: but, if you
felt so once, you will again. I should not dare, I should not
dare, after that —”

“I am not here,” responded Hector's deep and earnest tones,
“to make weak excuses for weak conduct. I acted then only as
he whom you knew as Hector could act. Trial and absence were

necessary to self-knowledge. The moment you were shut from
my sight, I saw the stupendous folly, the guilt, of sacrificing all
that could make true happiness for me on earth, to the paltry
considerations of expediency. I had sold my birthright for a mess
of pottage. I had given love, the life of my life, to fatten an
unworthy pride. One day I visited a public show, and saw
living doves put into the cages of serpents. I recognized the
image of my own sin. I had been feeding my doves to serpents!
For days the picture was before me; it haunted my sleep; I
awoke in groans of agony from the horror of the dream. I had
no respite, until I had slain the serpents. I rescued the doves — I
opened the cage, — and all with one accord flew joyously through
the clear heaven of my soul to you! Now, call me changeable,
if you will; reproach me for the wrong I did you; but here I am,
obedient, not to any caprice, not to inclination or passion merely,
but to the deepest convictions and holiest promptings of my
nature!”

Charlotte looked in his eyes. They were pure as the unclouded
heavens. They filled her with such strange and perilous sensations,
that, alarmed at herself, she turned away.

“But the serpents — I will never give them cause to turn their
rage against me!”

“If they had not been killed, I should not be here,” said Hector.
“What pledge can I give you? I know of none but that
of a life devoted henceforth to you!”

“And that I cannot, you know I cannot accept! Do not
torture me more! Think of what I am; think of yourself!
Remember your mother, too, she who is so proud of you!”

“If her pride is a true pride,” said Hector, with noble enthusiasm,
“she will rejoice that her son had the courage to set his
heel upon prejudice and conventionality, and stand by your side,
in the face of the world.”

“Your heart is too generous!” replied Charlotte, in a calm,
low voice. “Such sentiments cannot be taken into the world
and live. An impassable gulf divides us; I feel it, if you do
not; and I shudder when you draw me to the brink.”

Hector had expected opposition, but nothing like this. She
spoke in fearful earnest; and he knew it.

“If you tell me this because you do not love me, I am satisfied.
I will not plead one moment. But it is you, now, who
are untrue, both to yourself and me.”

She faltered, and her tears fell. He took her in his arms, and
she sobbed aloud. It was a moment of intense suffering, suffused
with an indefinable happiness, which his mere presence shed
about her like dew. But she hastened to recover herself, and
put him gently from her.

“If you did not know your power over me, at least you know
it now!” she said, with touching pathos. “But, if you are generous,
you will not use it. Whatever weakness I may show, my
resolution is unmoved. My future is already planned.”

She spoke of her engagement with Mrs. De Rohan. The
reviving joyousness with which she expressed her anticipations of
crossing the ocean, and of thus embracing a destiny in which he
had no share, filled Hector with insupportable pain. But when
she added that she had not forgotten that England was his fatherland,
and that when there she should think of him often, he
sprang impetuously to his feet.

“Often! indeed! I have no more to say! I might be satisfied
with often! Henceforth my lips are sealed! O, Charlotte —”
He paused; the younger Mrs. Longman was at the door.

Hector explained to his relative, with his customary frankness,
that he had not come to Montreal on a visit.

“On arriving home, two nights ago, I learned that Miss Woods
had deserted my mother. She was languishing, in her absence;
said I, `I will follow, and bring her back.' But she has made
different arrangements, and all that remains for me is to return
alone.”

At this crisis, a note was handed in “for Miss Woods.” The
eagerness with which she opened and read it did not escape
Hector's jealous eye. He judged it to be from Mrs. De Rohan.
He was not mistaken; it was a request for Charlotte to call upon
her that morning.

“How long will you be gone?” asked Mrs. Longman.

“Possibly a greater part of the day. I can walk,” said Charlotte;
“it is not far, and I need the exercise.”

“It is too far,” said the widow. “Hector shall carry you in
the chaise.”

Charlotte left the room. She was absent near half an hour,
when, returning, with her bonnet and shawl, she placed a letter
in Hector's hand.

“If you will give that to your mother —” Her voice was
tremulous, her eyes fell, and Hector saw that in her hand she
held another letter, which she hesitated to give him.

“I am going with you,” he said. “If you prefer to walk, we
will walk; but the chaise is at the door.”

“As you please,” responded Charlotte.

“Do you remember our first ride together,” he asked, as he
helped her into the chaise. “And the catastrophe, Charlotte?
— when you clung to my arm, and our souls knew each other, in
the hour of danger? O, what a life-time 'twixt then and now!
Then and now!” he repeated, as they rode away. “O, strange,
strange experience! And you — you—”

A passion of grief seemed bursting in his voice; but he checked
it, and fixed his features firm, and drove on in silence.

“We are close by Mrs. De Rohan's house,” said Charlotte, at
length. “Speak to me one last kind word, which it will be
pleasant to remember, if I should not see you again, will you
not?”

“Charlotte!” exclaimed Hector, “we do not part so! You do
not know in what an abyss I feel myself sinking at the thought
of it. All my bitter-and-sweet experience up to this hour serves
but to make a separation unendurable. And now — now — to
have your own choice decide against me, to see you depart free
and joyous in the pathway of a new existence, in which I have no
part; it makes my brain whirl, and my heart burst! Charlotte!
it cannot be!”

“You misunderstand me!” said Charlotte; “but I cannot
answer you now. I must stop here. This is the house.”

“The house will wait for us half an hour.”

“No; I will stop now. If you wish to see me again, come,
and I will ride back with you.”

“Give me that letter you have for me, and I will.”

“I wrote it when I did not expect to see you again; but, since
you are to call for me —”

“The letter!” exclaimed Hector. She gave it to him. He
accompanied her to the door; she entered, and, returning to the
chaise, he hid himself in the corner of the seat, and read the
letter.

It was the sweetest and yet bitterest morsel his eyes had ever
devoured. In the first half Charlotte had expressed a depth, a
purity, and intensity of love, in words which came all alive and
glowing from her soul. But in the concluding portion she
expressed an irrevocable decision to fulfil her engagement with
Mrs. De Rohan, and stated peremptory reasons that forbade the
very thought of a union with Hector. One page he kissed with
passionate fervor; the other he struck and crushed, in the torture
which it inflicted. He was still tormenting himself in this manner,
when Charlotte reäppeared. They rode on for some distance
in silence.

“Well,” said Hector, at length, “tell me!”

“I cannot tell you what you want me to,” replied Charlotte.

“You still hold to the decision expressed in this letter?”

A tremulous “Yes” was the response. “Will you give it back
to me?” added Charlotte.

Hector took the letter, and, tearing off the last page, scattered
it in fragments upon Charlotte's lap.

“That part is unworthy of you! The rest is dear to me, and
I shall keep it.”

Another silence. Charlotte gathered up the fragments, and
destroyed them.

“Hector,” she said, at length, “I am not going with Mrs. De
Rohan.” Joy leaped in Hector's heart. “Because I cannot,”
added Charlotte. “Even Providence seems working against me!
She has received letters which have decided her to go south, and
spend the winter with a brother in Mobile.”

At dinner, that day, Hector appeared in his best mood. His
cheerfulness, his simple and sweet wisdom, his flashing wit, and
the soft splendor of his eye, charmed his relatives. The welcome
intelligence that Charlotte would probably remain in the family
had rendered them susceptible to the influence; and their appreciation
drew Hector on. Their sympathy filled the cup that overflowed
again to them. And the fact that Charlotte was herself a
listener was to his mind as morning to the lark. For her it sang
its loftiest strain, and beat with its joyous wings the golden lattice
of heaven. No matter what the conversation was: the topics
were various, but every theme he touched, however lowly, — like
troughs and swine in the landscape of the artist, — received a
ray of the Supreme Beauty. All this without any pedantry or
display; but his imagination shed its radiance as it passed, as
naturally as the sun. Charlotte never spoke; but, troubled, trembling,
happy, her spirit drew near and sat at his feet to listen.
After dinner she could not refrain from thanking him for teaching
her so much.

“I never heard even you,” she said, “talk like that before.”

“Because,” replied Hector, “when you knew me before, I had
not lived the life I have lived since. If we would utter a truth,
we must first make it ours by deed and experience.”

Charlotte pondered. Hector was indeed changed. Surely he
had set his feet upon chains that fettered him before. A sweet
voice within her whispered that here was truth to be trusted, —
that here was indeed a noble and heroic love. Had she done
justice to herself and him? Was it right that the words he had
uttered that morning, thrilling her so, should be turned away, like
singing children, from the door of her heart, because she was
fearful of thieves? O, too delicious thought, that they might be
entertained in the innermost chamber of love's fond belief!