Charlotte's Inheritance - Mary Elizabeth Braddon (best e book reader for android .TXT) 📗

rustic windows. The roses and fuchsias of the cottage gardens seem all the brighter by contrast with that broad expanse of blue. The fresh breath of the salt sea blends with the perfume of new-mown hay and all the homely odours of the farmyard. The lark sings high in the blue vault of heaven above the church, and over the blue of the sea the gull skims white in the sunshine. The fisherman and the farm labourer have their cottages side by side, nestling cosily to leeward of the hilly winding road.

This hilly winding road in the July afternoon seemed to Charlotte almost like the way to Paradise.

"It is like going to heaven, Di!" she cried, with her eyes fixed on the square tower of the old grey church. She wondered why sudden tears sprang to Diana's eyes as she said this. Miss Paget brushed the unbidden tears away with a quick gesture of her hand, and smiled at her friend.

"Yes, dear, the village is very pretty, isn't it?"

"It looks awfully dull!" said Mrs. Sheldon, with a shudder; "and, Diana, I declare there isn't a single shop. Where are we to get our provisions? I told Mr. Sheldon St. Leonards would have been a better place for us."

"O mamma, St. Leonards is the very essence of all that is tame and commonplace, compared to this darling rural village! Look, do look, at that fisherman's cottage, with the nets hanging out to dry in the sunshine; just like a picture of Hook's!"

"What's the use of going on about fishermen's cottages, Lotta?" Mrs. Sheldon demanded, peevishly. "Fishermen's cottages won't provide us with butcher's meat. Where are we to get your little bit of roast mutton? Dr. Doddleson laid such a stress upon the roast mutton."

"The sea-air will do me more good than all the mutton that ever was roasted at Eton, mamma. O, dear, is this our farmhouse?" cried Charlotte, as the vehicle drew up at a picturesque gate. "O, what a love of a house! what diamond-paned windows! what sweet white curtains! and a cow staring at me quite in the friendliest way across the gate! O, can we be so happy as to live here?"

"Diana," cried Mrs. Sheldon, in a solemn voice, "not a single shop have we passed--not so much as a post-office! And as to haberdashery, I'm sure you might be reduced to rags in this place before you could get so much as a yard of glazed lining!"

The farmhouse was one of those ideal homesteads which, to the dweller in cities, seems fair as the sapphire-ceiled chambers of the house of Solomon. Charlotte was enraptured by the idea that this was to be her home for the next fortnight.

"I wish it could be for ever, Di," she said, as the two girls were inspecting the rustic, dimity-draperied, lavender-and-rose-leaf-perfumed bedchambers. "Who would wish to go back to prim suburban Bayswater after this? Valentine and I could lodge here after our marriage. It is better than Wimbledon. Grand thoughts would come to him with the thunder of the stormy waves; and on calm bright days like this the rippling water would whisper pretty fancies into his ear. Why, to live here would make any one a poet. I think I could write a novel myself, if I lived here long enough."

After this they arranged the pretty sitting-room, and placed an easy-chair by the window for Charlotte, an arm-chair opposite this for Mrs. Sheldon, and between the two a little table for the fancy work and books and flowers, and all the small necessities of feminine existence. And then--while Mrs. Sheldon prowled about the rooms, and discovered so many faults and made so many objections as to give evidence of a fine faculty for invention unsuspected in her hitherto--Charlotte and Diana explored the garden and peeped at the farmyard, where the friendly cow still stared over the white gate, just as she had stared when the fly came to a stop, as if she had not yet recovered from the astonishment created in her pastoral mind by that phenomenal circumstance. And then Charlotte was suddenly tired, and there came upon her that strange dizziness which was one of her most frequent symptoms. Diana led her immediately back to the house, and established her comfortably in her easy-chair.

"I must be very ill," she said, plaintively; "for even the novelty of this pretty place cannot make me happy long."

* * * * *


Mr. Sheldon arrived in the evening, bringing with him a supply of that simple medicine which Charlotte took three times a day. He had remembered that there was no dispensing chemist at Harold's Hill, and that it would be necessary to send to St. Leonards for the medicine, and had therefore brought with him a double quantity of the mild tonic.

"It was very kind of you to think of it, though I really don't believe the stuff does me any good," said Charlotte. "Nancy Woolper used to get it for me at Bayswater. She made quite a point of fetching it from the chemist's herself."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Sheldon. "Nancy troubled herself about your medicine, did she?"

"Yes, papa; and about me altogether. If I were her own daughter she could scarcely have seemed more anxious."

The stockbroker made a mental note of this in the memorandum-book of his brain. Mrs. Woolper was officious, was she, and suspicious?--altogether a troublesome sort of person.

"I think a few weeks of workhouse fare would be wholesome for that old lady," he said to himself. "There are some people who never know when they are well off."

Saturday afternoon came in due course, after a long and dreary interval, as it seemed to Charlotte, for whom time travelled very slowly, so painful was the weariness of illness. Now and then a sudden flash of excitement brought the old brightness to her face, the old gaiety to her accents; but the brightness faded very soon, and the languor of illness was very perceptible.

Punctual to the hour at which he was expected, Mr. Hawkehurst appeared, in radiant spirits, laden with new magazines, delighted with the village, enraptured with the garden, enchanted with the sea; full of talk and animation, with all sorts of news to tell his beloved. Such and such a book was a failure, such and such a comedy was a fiasco; Jones's novel had made a hit; Brown's picture was the talk of the year; and Charlotte must see the picture that had been talked about, and the play that had been condemned, when she returned to town.

For an hour the lovers sat in the pretty farmhouse parlour talking together thus, the summer sea and the garden flowers before them, and a bird singing high in the calm blue heaven. Charlotte's talk was somewhat languid, though it was perfect happiness for her to be seated thus, with her betrothed by her side; but Valentine's gaiety of spirits never flagged; and when Mrs. Sheldon hinted to him that too long a conversation might fatigue the dear invalid, he left the parlour with a smile upon his face, and a cheery promise to return after an hour's ramble.

He did not ramble far. He went straight to a little wooden summer-house in the remotest corner of the humble garden; and thither Diana Paget followed him. She had learned the language of his face in the time of their daily companionship, and she had seen a look as he left the house which told her of the struggle his cheerfulness had cost him.

"You must not be downhearted, Valentine," she said, as she went into the summer-house, where he sat in a listless attitude, with his arms lying loosely folded on the rustic table.

He did not answer her.

"You don't think her worse--much worse--do you, Valentine?"

"Worse? I have seen death in her face to-day!" he cried; and then he let his forehead fall upon his folded arms, and sobbed aloud.

Diana stood by his side watching that outburst of grief. When the passionate storm of tears was past, she comforted him as best she might. The change so visible to him was not so plain to her. He had hoped that the breath of the ocean would have magical power to restore the invalid. He had come to Harold's Hill full of hope, and instead of the beginning of an improvement he saw the progress of decay.

"Why did not Sheldon send for the doctor," he asked, indignantly,--"the physician who has attended her? He might have telegraphed to that man."

"Charlotte is taking Dr. Doddleson's medicine," said Diana, "and all his directions are most carefully obeyed."

"What of that, if she grows worse? The doctor should see her daily, hourly, if necessary. And if he cannot cure her, another doctor should be sent for. Good heavens, Diana! are we to let her fade and sink from us before our eyes? I will go back to London at once, and bring that man Doddleson down by the night mail."

"Your going back to London would grieve and alarm Charlotte. You can telegraph for the doctor; or, at least, Mr. Sheldon can do so. It would not do for you to interfere without his permission."

"It would not do!" echoed Valentine, angrily. "Do you think that I am going to stand upon punctilio, or to consider what will do or will not do?"

"Above all things, you must avoid alarming Charlotte," pleaded Diana.

"Do you think I do not know that? Do you think I did not feel that just now, when I sat by her side, talking inane rubbish about books and plays and pictures, while every stolen glance at my darling's face was like a dagger thrust into my heart? I will not alarm her. I will consult Mr. Sheldon--will do anything, everything, to save her! To save her! O my God, has it come to that?"

He grew a little calmer presently under Diana's influence, and went slowly back to the house. He avoided the open window by which Charlotte was sitting. He had not yet schooled himself to meet her questioning looks. He went to the room where they were to dine, a duller and darker apartment than the parlour, and here he found Mr. Sheldon reading a paper, one of the eternal records of the eternal money-market.

The stockbroker had been in and out of the house all day, now sauntering by the sea-shore, now leaning moodily, with folded arms, on the garden gate, meditative and silent as the cow that stared at Charlotte; now pacing the garden walks, with his hands in his pockets and his head bent. Diana, who in her anxiety kept a close watch upon Mr. Sheldon's movements, had noted his restlessness, and perceived in it the sign of growing anxiety on his part. She knew that he had once called himself surgeon-dentist, and had some medical knowledge, if not so much as he took credit for possessing. He must, therefore, be better able to judge the state of Charlotte's health than utterly ignorant observers. If he were uneasy, there must be real cause for uneasiness. It was on this account, and on this account only, that Diana watched him.

"He must love her better than I gave him credit for being able to love any one," Miss Paget said to herself. "Dear girl! The coldest heart is touched by her sweetness."

Mr. Sheldon looked up from his