Horace Hampden brooded by the fire in his dusky parlor, and his cousin George Hampden sat near him. When a jet of flame darted from the grate and lighted up their faces they saw the grief which was busy at their hearts. For a long time they had been silent, intent upon their cigars; now one moved his hand, and the other his foot, and then each supposed the other was about to speak. Horace and George were cousins. Horace was married, a prosperous man of business, and George was a bachelor, and a lawyer; both were men of means, lived in the same circle, enjoyed the same amusements, and many of their attachments were in common. Consequently they were much in each other’s society, and Charlotte Hampden, the wife of Horace, looked upon George as one of her family.
A few weeks before this period, Horace, not able to leave his business, permitted Charlotte to take their only son, a boy of fourteen, to France, to be educated in the college at Amiens. She crossed the sea in safety, left her son, and started on the return voyage in the steamer “Andromeda.” When her arrival was nearly due, a terrible gale sprung up, and extended along the Atlantic sea-board, which lasted several days. “Prayers for those at sea” went up from all interested souls, and a raging anxiety devoured both Horace and George. The nominal date of the “Andromeda’s” arrival went by. Other steamers came in, more or less ravaged by the storm, news of shipwreck were rife, the underwriters were busy, but nothing was heard of the “Andromeda.” At first the papers gave plausible reasons, mentioned the seaworthy character of the steamer, and the ability of her commander—and then became oblivious. Afterwards, when a list of her passengers was published, more than one person read the name of Charlotte Hampden with regret. She was popular in her circle, and deserved to be; still in her brightest prime, handsome, and lovable in all respects. Her friends, in their obituary remarks, said that her life might be compared to a party of pleasure sailing over a calm lake on a summer’s day. Now her awful fate had been mysterious—annihilated by the dreadful sea in some sudden spasm of relentless fury, and ingulphed in the dark world of a deep which never gives up its dead! Horace and George watched and waited still, with hopes that hourly turned to despair, and refused to own their fatal dread to each other.
One day a ship came into port with tidings which confirmed the wreck of the “Andromeda.” Sailing north of Hatteras she had come in contact with a mass of floating gear, and secured it. There was evidence that a useless effort had been made by some drowning wretches to tie spars and boards together; a portion of a bulk-head was with it. With a coarse brush some ship’s hand had drawn the outline of a dromedary with a huge hump, and upon that were the half-effaced letters which composed the name “Andromeda.” The day this news appeared, Horace and George met on the pier where the ship was moored, with the same errand—that of seeing with their own eyes, and hearing with their own ears, the truth. Hand griping hand they turned away, and brokenly said that all hope was gone.
“Oh!” cried poor Horace, “to have no last service to perform, to know that this loss must be for ever invisible!”
“As if she were merely absent, no last memories to turn to, but one temporary farewell,” replied George.
The evening found them together by the deserted fireside. George broke the silence at last.
“Is dinner nearly ready?” he asked.
“Half an hour yet,” replied Horace, holding his watch to the fire-light. “Will you have the gas lighted?”
“No. Something lies so heavy at my heart, that I have resolved to unburden myself.”
“My dear boy,” said Horace, surprised that he should choose the present moment for a personal confidence; but thinking that he meant it for his own distraction, he added that he was all attention.
“We are such complicated creatures,” began George, “and circumstances so arrange our consciences that all reasoning is baffled. Were Charlotte living, it would be impossible for me to make this confession—though, living or dead, to her I am the same man. I have long loved her, Horace, as no man should love the wife of his friend, or the wife of any man. By the stress of my suffering and my sympathy for you, I tell you, we are one in this loss.”
Horace was dumb; another chasm seemed to open in his life. What else should he see
“In the dark backward and abysm of time?”
“Are you amazed?” continued George. “Charlotte has never dreamed of me. To her I have been your friend; the reflection of our friendship has chastely fallen on her affectionate heart.”
Unconsciously Horace drew a breath of relief, which George, with deep sadness, perceived, and went on.
“I tell you this, partly because if mere abstract love is noble, mine has been, and partly to prove to you that I have entered into your loss as no other being can, and with the hope that my pure and faithful love may prove a bond between us, and an everlasting solace. To all intents and worldly purposes, your son shall be my son, and together, as white-headed old men, we will watch and aid his progress into manhood and the duties of life.”
George ended with a hysterical sob. His instincts told him that Horace was less great than himself at this moment, and he was disappointed. Horace, too, was now conscious of a want of magnanimity; but, how was it possible to resist that vital jealousy which invades the soul of a man, when the woman whose sole possession is his own comes in question with another man? He longed to be alone that he might go back over all the past of their mutual lives; but swallowing something, he knew not what, he rose suddenly, offered his hand to George, and in a husky voice said,
“It’s all right, my dear boy; such matters scare one at first, you know. But upon my word, I see no occasion to wonder over what you have told me. I have not now to learn how much we are alike.”
“Spare me all criticism, Horace; the Judgment Day may be anticipated sometimes. Charlotte was my ideal of all that was noble and beautiful; why should I not pay her this tribute to you now?”
Dinner was announced. Dinner that comes as inexorably as death—dinner that must be prepared, must be eaten; dinner, like the king, “never dies.”
Both felt the relief of the announcement. The dinner passed off with a few commonplace remarks, and soon after George withdrew to his own solitary apartments in an adjoining street. When alone, he questioned his course, and condemned himself for sentimentality. Of what use to reveal the inner life, and show the pure flame of the soul burning on a sacred altar, to one whose limitations suggested a dark lantern, the slides of which shut over its own feeble wick at any approach? Calmer than he had been for many nights, however, he fell asleep, and more than once dreamed of the “touch of a vanished hand.” The old ways were resumed in Audley Street; George paid his daily visit there, and he and Horace were seen abroad as formerly. People mentioned them as the inseparable mourners—again referring to Charlotte’s blighted life, which had been rounded so completely by such a husband, and such a friend.
It was now in the full tide of falling leaves, more than a month since the confirmation of the “Andromeda’s” loss. Horace and George, inhabiting the little smoking den upstairs—the rest of the house being closed, for they could not endure yet to be where Charlotte’s belongings were—felt an additional melancholy when rain fell, or high winds roared round the walls. The picture of a ghastly sea rose before them, rent and torn by the wind like clouds; figures with despairing gestures tossed wildly to and fro, and agonized cries ascended from an unfathomable depth and distance of space, reaching them, lost, mingled, and spent by the wind, whose merciless errand it was to bring them. This made Horace and George close their teeth, and inwardly strangle the strange noises which stifled their own hearts.
“Suppose we were to shut the house at once?” asked Horace. “It grows too dismal; this howling weather drives my spirits down into my boots, and no tugging at the straps fetches them up again. What do you say to a Canadian trip? I want to see my agent in Toronto.”
“As you please,” answered George with a sigh. “It is all one to me. It seems to me the most congenial place here; there is distraction in travel, though, and if you want to be distracted, go we will.”
“I hardly feel it a duty to try and test my feelings, George. Will you remain if I go?”
“Oh confound it—no! We must Ruth and Naomize it, having begun so—I’ll go. I believe I have lost all spring; my days are like zinc, my nights like lead.”
And so they grimly talked and laughed. The trip was decided on, two days from that time.
There was a little more bustle than usual in Audley Street, at the appointed hour of departure. Horace and George were to leave by an evening train; dinner was ordered an hour earlier. Some stir of packing the trunk of Horace by the housekeeper made things wear a familiar aspect. When Horace turned his latch-key and entered the hall, seeing open doors, lighted rooms, and a general movement of life, the old familiar sense of home smote his sick heart. He looked up in the empty air, and his soul cried:
“My lost life, and love, and home! Oh treasures mocking my memory—would that I could die this moment!” He was mechanically wiping his hot face when George came in, with an assumption of cheerfulness, speaking loudly, and stepping about as if he liked it.
“Old boy,” said Horace, putting away his handkerchief, “Maggie is getting up a first-rate dinner for us; she says we must start on strengthening diet. I declare she is a trump. I feel bound to the servants—they all are trumps—showed so much feeling, by George—”
“Good,” interposed George, “I am awfully hungry.”
“Of course you are,” muttered Horace, “and you have been—eating as much as Charlotte’s goldfinch this past month.”
“We have a fair night to leave in,” said George, as they commenced their soup.
“Yes, we have had a calm day.”
“Our Indian summer sets in now.”
Both dropped in a reverie, remembering the past.
“What have you here, Pat?” asked Horace.
Horace took his carver, as Pat raised the cover.
A rumbling noise was heard in the street, which they listened to. Wheels were thundering up the street, and horses were galloping.
“Too soon for us,” said George, taking his watch out.
“But it stops here,” answered Horace.
“Pshaw!” cried George, his face flushing deeply.
A carriage was at the door, and the bell was pulled. Its wire was then a true electric wire; it gave the knowledge of a coming event like lightning. A curious cry and stir came up the stairs, and Horace and George sprang from their chairs, and flew down. They saw Hannah, the maid, supporting Charlotte Hampden—Charlotte, alive, but speechless from emotion—pale, altered, but still herself! Behind her stood a young man, with a big railway rug in one hand, and several packages in the other.
“Bless me,” he said, with an affected accent, but half-crying too, “our heroine gives out at the last moment.”
Horace took his wife in his arms; not a word was spoken. George slid down the stair in a dead faint. Pat’s picking him up made a diversion, and Horace carried Charlotte to the dining room, followed by all, except George, who was rallying from his faint by himself, with a host of sensations which he believed no man had ever felt before.
“What does this wonderful Providence mean?” asked Horace, kneeling by Charlotte, whom he had placed on the sofa. “I am afraid to look away from you, lest I should find myself a madman.”
“It means,” replied Charlotte’s companion leisurely, ridding himself of his traps, “that we kept the boat tolerably dry, and that your wife has more nerve than any other woman upon earth. But what extraordinary introductions do I have to America! The denizens of the coast where we were stranded have a very limited view of the earth, but a very comprehensive one of the sea, and their rights therefrom. Consequently we found it impossible to convey tidings sooner of ourselves.”
“Dear Horace,” said Charlotte, “Mr. Egremont Moyston may joke as he will—he has saved my life.”
Horace fell to shaking his hand violently, and stared at him with eyes full of feeling which he could not express.
“Nonsense,” continued Mr. Moyston, “we undoubtedly aided each other. Mr. Hampden, we had a touch of brain fever which delayed us. We were thrown only six miles above the Batto light-house, but we might as well have landed in Patagonia. The white trash who kept us had no sense of what country they were in. ‘Pomanco Court House’ was the idea of their outside world. No conveyances, no comfort of any sort could we obtain. We were compelled to remain there till I was able to prowl about, and get down to the Batto light, to learn our whereabouts.”
From point to point the wonderful narrative went on. Dinner was renewed. The servants, stricken with astonishment and admiration, lost their sense of decorum, and even the cook came up and occupied the edge of a chair, without remembering, as was her duty, that her plane was so much lower than the company that no number of kitchen stairs could measure it.
George had recovered himself, and returned.
“And so you missed your poor Charlotte, dear George?” she asked.
“Very much,” he replied.
“Do I look badly?”
“As if you had suffered.”
“Yet, dear Mrs. Hampden,” said Mr. Moyston, very seriously, “if you and I should consult the glass, we could not find the traces of suffering that we may behold in the faces of your husband and brother.”
At the word brother Horace felt a violent throb in all his frame. Heavens! George was no brother; he was his wife’s devoted, life-long lover. In spite of the situation and the circumstances, the blood flew like birds through every vein. It appeared an inexorable necessity that he should go away by himself, and reflect upon his own feelings, and speculate upon those of George, and guess at the management of the clouded future.
“Why,” exclaimed Charlotte, “George’s hair has grown white.”
So it had. Horace’s was not changed a whit, and this he acknowledged to himself, when he saw her eyes scanning his ebon locks; he wished they were a dead white.
“No, indeed,” laughed George, “being a little worried at your absence, I left off my ‘Hair Restorer.’ Now that you have returned—” For the life of him he could not utter another word, his lips trembled so. Charlotte rose, went to him, and kissed him, and said softly:
“I thank God more than ever for having restored me to those who so tenderly love me. Now, Horace, I must shut my eyes and sense for the night. Pat, take the best care of Mr. Moyston; this house is his home.”
“By Jove, Mr. Hampden,” said Mr. Moyston, as Horace withdrew with Charlotte, “is there anything in antiquity to beat our case? I’ve gone through the Greek tragedies, and fed on our stalwart British classics, but I do not find its match.”
“By the way,” said George, absently, “I am not the brother of Mrs. Hampden’s husband, but his cousin; we are very much together, however.”
“Oh,” answered Mr. Moyston. “America is the most extraordinary place. Home isn’t a flea bite.”
“Pray accept my gratitude, Mr. Moyston. I divine, by Mrs. Hampden’s manner, what the nature of your service has been.” He looked at him with so profound a thankfulness that Mr. Moyston was affected by this praise, and for the first time indicated emotion.
“It is just what you would have done for my sister,” he replied hastily; and then they shook hands. Horace re-entered. Charlotte had retired, he said; he had tried to keep up his composure before her, for he saw how shattered her nerves were, but he could have no rest till he heard the full account of the disaster, and rescue.
It was gray dawn before the men separated. The occasion had made them firm friends; Horace was ready to give half his money to Mr. Moyston, and George half his affection. The journey was given up, of course. As George looked round for his valise, Mr. Moyston expressed some surprise.
“Do you go from here at this hour?”
A mighty longing came over George to remain under the roof with her who had been so miraculously restored. He looked at Horace, and Horace made no response. Human failing came over him again: he could not be magnanimous, and George turned away with a sigh. Mr. Moyston perceived there was some hidden fact or feeling between them.
“My apartment is very near,” said George carelessly. “And by the way, Mr. Moyston, I hope you will share it a part of the time—bachelors prefer their solitary quarters, you know.”
“I hate bachelordom from this out,” replied Mr. Moyston. “I have lately seen all the virtues under the sun in Mrs. Hampden. Can I find another in this country?”
“Is he in love with her, too?”—thought poor Horace. “I suppose so—confound him! He is a hero—and George’s hair must needs turn white.”
“I’m off. Horace, bolt the door, to keep Charlotte in. What will Herbert say to these tidings of his mother?”
Herbert! his son—Horace had not thought of him yet; George was in advance even here.
“Boys are boys,” he replied quickly. “I’ll warrant you he has played cricket to-day.”
“As he ought to,” laughed Mr. Moyston, making a move towards the door, feeling an internal uneasiness.
“All this has given me a shock,” said Horace, vaguely. “I am not equal to it. George, I tell you, I am not equal to it, and I can’t bear it. You always were the strongest, and now your hair’s got white. By George, do you know she showed me her arm, with a great scar on it, where she was knocked down on deck! I don’t believe she is here at all. The scar is here, nothing else, you know, George.” He staggered, and grew frightfully pale; he shook his head from side to side, and groaned pitifully.
“The shock, added to his great sorrow, has been too much for him,” said Mr. Moyston. “Fetch some brandy, we must rub him; he is about to have a stroke. Just my luck in America,” he said to himself.
George, stricken to the heart, but collected, made use of all available means; but Horace sunk momently—babbling at intervals about Charlotte—whom George would not at present disturb—and finally became wholly insensible.
Whatever Fate changes, or returns, God still disposes. Charlotte, bearing the greatest exposure, suffering, and vicissitude, survived; and Horace, in the ease and comfort of his orderly life, was struck with paralysis. His head and heart were not strong enough for the burdens placed upon them. He lingered two years, a helpless, but gentle, childish man, sedulously tended by George, whose secret was carefully protected from Charlotte. Mr. Moyston alone discovered it.
“I forswear England for the present,” he said one day. “I find more character in America. George, noble as you are, you need me for awhile, and as I was the means of bringing Charlotte safely out of a crisis, I shall stay till I see you landed in the haven which shall be your right and rest. Not a word. I love Charlotte as I love no other woman, and I honor and respect you. Hurrah for the Colonies of King George! Just you propose going to England, to leave her now, for the fun.”
“I have never proposed anything,” answered George, “and I shall never propose.”
“It will not be necessary, my dear boy.”