Read Ebook: How It All Came Round by Meade L T

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Ebook has 641 lines and 41572 words, and 13 pages

"Just so, Uncle Jasper. So you have told me very many times, when you have feared my troubling him on certain matters. Now it has come to me from another source that he is very ill. My eyes have been opened, and I see the fact myself. I wish to learn the simple and exact truth. I wish to see the doctor he has consulted."

"How do you know he has consulted any?"

"Has he?"

Uncle Jasper was silent for a moment. He felt in a difficulty. Did Charlotte know the worst, she might postpone her marriage, the last thing to be desired just now; and yet where had she got her information? It was awkward enough, though he felt a certain sense of relief in thus accounting for the change in her appearance since yesterday morning. He got up and approached her side softly.

"My dear, I do own that your father is ill. I own, too, that I have, by his most express wish, made as light of the matter to you as I could. The fact is, Charlotte, he is anxious, very anxious, about himself. He thinks himself much worse than I believe him to be; but his strongest desire is, that now, on the eve of your marriage, you should not be alarmed on his account. I firmly believe you have no cause for any special fear. Ought you not to respect his wishes, and rest satisfied without seeking to know more than he and I tell you? I will swear, Charlotte, if that is any consolation to you, that I am not immediately anxious about your father."

"You need not swear, Uncle Jasper. Your not being anxious does not prevent my being so. I am determined to find out the exact truth. If he thinks himself very ill he has, of course, consulted some medical man. If you will not tell me his name I will myself ask my father to do so to-night."

"Just so, Uncle Jasper, and you can spare him that by telling me what you know."

"I certainly am quite resolved, uncle."

"No, thank you; I prefer to go alone. What is the doctor's name?"

"I will go to him at once," said Charlotte.

"What are you suffering from?" he asked of her.

"It is not myself, Sir George," she said, then making a great effort to control her voice--"I have come about my father--my father is one of your patients. His name is Harman."

Sir George turned to a large book at his side, opened it at a certain page, read quietly for a moment, then closing it, fixed his keen eyes on the young lady.

"You are right," he said, "your father, Mr. Harman, is one of my patients. He came to see me no later than last week."

"Sir," said Charlotte, and her voice grew steadier and braver as she spoke, "I am in perfect health, and my father is ill. I have come here to-day to learn from your lips the exact truth as to his case."

"The exact truth?" said the doctor. "Does your father know you have come here, Miss--Miss Harman?"

"He does not, Sir George. My father is a widower, and I am his only child. He has endeavored to keep this thing from me, and hitherto has partially succeeded. Yesterday, through another source, I learned that he is very seriously ill. I have come to you to know the truth. You will tell it to me, will you not?"

"And you will?"

"Well, the fact is, Miss Harman, he is anxious that you should not know. I am scarcely prepared to fathom your strength of character. Any shock will be of serious consequence to him. How can I tell how you will act when you know all?"

"You are preparing me for the worst now, Sir George. I solemnly promise you in no way to use my knowledge so as to give my father the slightest shock."

"I believe you," answered the doctor. "A brave woman can do wonders. Women are unselfish; they can hide their own feelings to comfort and succor another. Miss Harman, I am sorry for you, I have bad news for you."

"I know it, Sir George. My father is very ill."

"Your father is as seriously ill as a man can be to be alive; in short, he is--dying."

"Is there no hope?"

"None."

"Must he die soon?" asked Charlotte, after a brief pause.

"That depends. His malady is of such a nature that any sudden shock, any sudden grief will probably kill him instantly. If his mind is kept perfectly calm, and all shocks are kept from him, he may live for many months."

"Oh! terrible!" cried Charlotte.

She covered her face. When she raised it at last it looked quite haggard and old.

"Sir George," she said, "I do not doubt that in your position as a doctor you have come across some secrets. I am going to confide in you, to confide in you to a certain measure."

"Your confidence shall be sacred, my dear young lady."

"Yesterday, Sir George, I learned something, something which concerns my father. It concerns him most nearly and most painfully. It relates to an old and buried wrong. This wrong relates to others; it relates to those now living most nearly and most painfully."

"Is it a money matter?" asked the doctor.

"It is a money matter. My father alone can set it right. I mean that during his lifetime it cannot possibly in any way be set right without his knowledge. Almost all my life, he has kept this thing a secret from me and--and--from the world. For three and twenty years it has lain in a grave. If he is told now, and the wrong cannot be repaired without his knowledge, it will come on him as a--disgrace. The question I ask of you is this: can he bear the disgrace?"

"And my answer to you, Miss Harman, is, that in his state of health the knowledge you speak of will instantly kill him."

"Then--then--God help me! what am I to do? Can the wrong never be righted?"

"My dear young lady, I am sincerely sorry for you. I cannot enter into the moral question, I can only state a fact. As your father's physician I forbid you to tell him."

"You forbid me to tell him?" said Charlotte. She got up and pulled down her veil. "Thank you," she said, holding out her hand. "I have that to go on--as my father's physician you forbid him to know?"

"I forbid it absolutely. Such a knowledge would cause instant death."

PUZZLED.

The old Australian Alexander Wilson, had left his niece, Charlotte Home, after his first interview with her, in a very disturbed state of mind. More disturbed indeed was he than by the news of his sister's death. He was a rich man now, having been successful in the land of his banishment, and having returned to his native land the possessor of a moderate fortune. He had never married, and he meant to live with Daisy and share his wealth with her. But in these day-dreams he had only thought of his money as giving some added comforts to his rich little sister, enabling her to have a house in London for the season, and, while living in the country, to add more horses to her establishment and more conservatories to build and tend. His money should add to her luxuries and, consequently, to her comforts. He had never heard of this unforgotten sister for three and twenty years, the strange dislike to write home having grown upon him as time went on but though he knew nothing about her, he many a time in his own wild and solitary life pictured her as he saw her last. Daisy never grew old to him. Death and Daisy were not connected. Daisy in his imagination was always young, always girlish always fresh and beautiful. He saw her as he saw her last in her beautiful country home standing by her rich husband's side, looking more like his daughter than his wife. No, Sandy never dreamed that Daisy would or could die, but in thinking of her he believed her to be a widow. That husband, so old, when he went away, must be dead.

On his arrival in England, Sandy went down into Hertfortshire. He visited the place where he had last seen his sister. It was in the hands of strangers--sold long ago. No one even remembered the name of Harman. Then he met little Daisy Home, and learned quite by accident that his Daisy was dead, and that the pretty child who reminded him of her was her grandchild. He went to visit Charlotte Home, and there made a fresh discovery. Had his Daisy been alive she would have wanted far more from his well-filled purse than horses and carriages. She would have needed not the luxuries of life, but the necessities. He had imagined her rich, while she had died in poverty. She had died poor, and her child, her only child, bore evident marks of having met face to face with the sorest of all want, that which attacks the gently born. Her face, still young, but sadly thin and worn, the very look in her eyes told this fact to Sandy.

Yes; his pretty Daisy, whom he had imagined so rich, so bountifully provided for, had died a very poor and struggling woman. Doubtless this sad and dreadful fact had shortened her days. Doubtless but for this monstrous injustice she would be alive now, ready to welcome her long-lost brother back to his native land.

All that night Sandy Wilson lay awake. He was a hale and hearty man, and seldom knew what it was to toss for any time on his pillow; but so shocked was he, that this night no repose would visit him. An injustice had been done, a fraud committed, and it remained for him to find out the evil thing, to drag it to the light, to set the wronged right once more. Charlotte Home was not at all the character he could best understand. She was not in the least like her mother. She told the tale of her wrongs with a strange and manifest reluctance. She believed that a fraud had been committed. She was fully persuaded that not her long-dead father but her living half-brothers were the guilty parties. In this belief Sandy most absolutely shared. He longed to drag these villains into the glaring light of justice, to expose them and their disgraceful secret to the shameful light of day. But in this longing he saw plainly that Charlotte did not share. He was puzzled, scarcely pleased that this was so. How differently little Daisy would have acted had she been alive. Dear little innocent Daisy, who all alone could do nothing, would in his strong presence have grown so brave and fearless. She would have put the case absolutely and once for all into his hands. Now this her daughter did not seem disposed to do. She said to him, with most manifest anxiety, "You will do nothing without me. You will do nothing until we meet again."

He went to Somerset House. He saw the will; he saw the greatness of the robbery committed so many years ago; he saw and he felt a wild kind of almost savage delight in the fact that he could quickly and easily set the wrong right, for he was one of the trustees. He saw all this, and yet--and yet--he went away a very unhappy and perplexed man, for he had seen something else--he had seen a woman's agony and despair. Sandy Wilson possessed the very softest soul that had ever been put into a big body. He never could bear to see even a dog in pain. How then could he look at the face of this girl which, all in a moment, under his very eyes, had been blanched with agony? He could not bear it. He forgot his fierce longing for revenge, he forgot his niece Charlotte's wrongs, in this sudden and passionate desire to succor the other Charlotte, the daughter of the bad man who had robbed his own sister, his own niece; he became positively anxious that Miss Harman should not commit herself; he felt a nervous fear as each word dropped from her lips; he saw that she spoke in the extremity of despair. How could he stop the words which told too much? He was relieved when the thought occurred to him to ask her to meet him again--again when they both were calmer. She had consented, and he found himself advising her, as he would have advised his own dear daughter had he been lucky enough to have possessed one. He promised her that nothing, nothing should be done until they met again, and so afraid was he that in his interview that evening with his niece, Mrs. Home, he might be tempted to drop some word which might betray ever so little that other Charlotte, that instead of going to Tremin's Road as he had intended, he wrote a note excusing himself and putting off his promised visit until the following evening.

CHARLOTTE'S PLEA.

He arrived at the square of Somerset House, and found Miss Harman waiting for him.

She came up to him at once and held out her hand. His quick eye detected at a glance that she was now quite calm and collected, that whatever she might have done in the first agony of her despair yesterday, to-day she would do nothing to betray herself. Strange to say, he liked her far less well in this mood than he had done yesterday, and his heart and inclination veered round again to his wronged niece and her children with a sense of pleasure and almost triumph.

They began to walk up and down, and Miss Harman, finding that her companion was silent, was the first to speak.

"You asked me to meet you here to-day. What do you want to say to me?"

Good heavens! was she going to ride the high horse over him in this style? Sandy's small eyes almost flashed as he turned to look at her.

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