Charlotte's Inheritance

by M. E. Braddon

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 substituted 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 repetition.

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 constitute 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 mediæval 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, Othello! There is the flavour of racking care in that mighty creation. The strong soul wantonly tortured by a sordid wretch; the noble 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 pass 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 littérateurs. 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.

Charlotte had remonstrated with him on the impropriety of such an extravagance, and had exacted from him a promise that this wild and Monte-Christo-like course should be pursued no further; but she was very proud of her half-hoop of diamonds nevertheless, and was wont to press it tenderly to her lips before she laid it aside for the night.

"There must be no more such extravagance, sir," she said to her lover, when he sat by her side twisting the ring round and round on her pretty finger. Alas, how loose the ring had become since it had first been placed there!

"Consider the future, Valentine," continued the girl, hopeful of mood while her hand rested in his. "Do you suppose we can furnish our cottage at Wimbledon if we rush into such wild expenses as diamond rings? Do you know that I am saving money, Valentine? Yes, positively. Papa gives me a very good allowance for my dresses, and bonnets, and things, you know, and I used to be extravagant and spend it all. But now I have become the most miserly creature; and I have a little packet of money upstairs which you shall put in the Unitas Bank with the rest of your wealth. Diana and I have been darning, and patching, and cutting, and contriving, in the most praiseworthy manner. Even this silk has been turned. You did not think that, did you, when you admired it so?"