WHO WAS ROSE FLOWERS?
"Well, my dear Corona, I must ask you to cast your thoughts back to that year when you first came to Rockhold to live, and engrossed so much of your grandmother's time and attention that your grandfather grew jealous and impatient, and commissioned me to 'hire' a nursery governess to look after you and teach you the rudiments of education. You remember that time, Cora?" inquired Mr. Fabian, as he held the reins with a slackened grasp, so that the horse jogged slowly along the wooded road between the foot of the mountain and the banks of the river, under the star-lit sky.
"I remember perfectly," answered the girl.
"Well, business took me to New York about that time, and I thought it a good opportunity to hunt up a governess for you. So I advertised in the New York papers, giving my address at an uptown office, while my own business kept me down town.
"The first letter I opened interested me so much that I gave my whole attention to that first, and so it happened that I had no occasion to touch the others. It was from one Ann White, who described herself as a motherless and fatherless girl of sixteen, a stranger in this country, who was trying to get employment as assistant teacher, governess, or copyist, and who was well fitted to take sole charge of a little girl seven years old.
"Perhaps this might not have impressed me, but she went on to write that she had not a friend in the whole country, that she was utterly destitute and desolate, and begged me for Heaven's mercy not to throw her letter aside, but to see her and give her a trial. She inclosed her photograph, not, as she wrote, from any vanity, but that I might see her face and take pity on her.
"Cora, there was an air of childish frankness and simplicity about her letter that was well illustrated by her photograph. It was that of a sweet-smiling baby face; a sunny, innocent beautiful face. I answered the letter immediately, asking for her address, that I might call and see her. The next day I received her answer, thanking me with enthusiastic earnestness for my prompt attention to her note, and giving me the number and street of her residence in Harlem. I got on a Second Avenue car and rode out to Harlem; got off at the terminus, walked up a cross street and walked some distance to a bijou of a brown cottage, standing in shaded grounds, with sunny gleams and flower beds, and half covered by creeping roses, clematis, wisteria, and all that.
"I went in, and was received by the beautiful being that you have known as Rose Flowers. She was dressed in some misty, cloud-like pale blue fabric that set off her blonde beauty to perfection. After we were seated and had talked some time, I telling her what light duties would be required of her—only the care of one good little girl of seven years old, and of a very mild old lady who was the only lady in the house, and of the old gentleman who was the head of the family, strict but just in all his dealings; and of our country house in the mountains and our town house in the State capital—and she expressing the greatest and frankest anxiety to become a member of such a happy, amiable, prosperous family, and declaring with childish boasting that she was quite competent to perform all the duties expected of her and would perform them conscientiously, I suddenly asked her for her references.
"'I—I have not a friend in this world,' she said; and then in a timid voice, she asked: 'Are references indispensable?'
"'Of course,' I answered
"'Then the Lord help me! Nothing is left but the river. The river won't require references;' and with that she buried her little golden-haired head in the cushions of the sofa and burst into a perfect storm of sobs and tears. Now, Cora, what in the deuce was a man to do? I had never seen anything like that in all my life before. I had never seen a woman in such a fit before. All this was strange and horrible to me.
"I am a middling strong old fellow, but that beautiful girl's despair upset me, and I never could hear any one hint suicide, and she talked of the river. The river would receive her without references. The river was kinder than her own fellow creatures! The river would give her a home and rest and peace! She only wanted to do honest work for her living, but human beings would not even let her work for them without references! And I declare to you, Cora, she was not acting, as you might suspect. She was in deadly earnest. Her sobs shook her whole frame.
"At last I myself behaved like an ass. I went and knelt down beside her so as to get quite close to her, and I began to comfort her. I told her not to mind about the references; that she might have me for a reference all the days of her life; that she should have the situation at Rockhold, where I would convey her and introduce her on my own responsibility.
"While I spoke to her I laid my hand on the little golden-haired head and smoothed it all the time. Out of pity, Cora, I assure you on my honor, out of pity. After a while her sobs seemed to subside slowly. I told her that her face was to me a sufficient recommendation in her favor, and all-sufficient testimonial of character; but that I must have her confidence in exchange for my own.
"You see, Cora, I was very sorry for the poor, pretty creature, and was really anxious to befriend her; but also my curiosity was keenly piqued. I wished to know her private history, and so I assured her that she should have the position she wanted on the condition of telling me her antecedents.
"At last she yielded, and told me the story of her short, willful life. This, then, was her poor, little, pathetic story.
"Her name was Ann White. She was the daughter of Amos White, an English curate, living in a remote village in Northumberland, and of his first wife, who had died during the infancy of her youngest child, Ann, a year after which her father had married again. Ann's step-mother was one of the most beautiful women in England, and—one of the most discontented, as the wife of a widowed clergyman who was old enough to be her father, who had three sons and two daughters by a former marriage, and who was trying to support his family on a hundred pounds a year. Yet, so long as her father lived, Ann's childhood was happy. But her father, who had been a consumptive, also died when Ann was about seven years old. Then the family was broken up. The three step-sons went to seek their fortunes in New Zealand. The eldest step-daughter had been married and had gone to London a few months before her father's death; the younger step-daughter went to live with that married sister. Ann and her step-mother were permitted to remain at the parsonage until the successor of Amos White could be appointed. At last the new curate came—a handsome and accomplished man—Rev. Raphael Rosslynn. He was a bachelor, without near relatives. He called on the Widow White and at once set her heart at ease by begging her not to trouble herself to leave the parsonage, but to remain there for the present at least, and take him as a boarder. He was perfectly frank with the lovely widow, and told her that he was engaged to his own cousin, and that as soon as he should get a living promised him on the death of the present incumbent, and which was worth twelve hundred pounds a year, he should marry, but that he could not allow himself to anticipate happiness that must rise on a grave. But in the course of the year that which might have been expected happened, the young widow, who had never cared for her elderly first husband, fell desperately in love with her lodger, who was not very slow to respond, for her grace, beauty and allurements attracted, bewildered, and bedeviled him, so that he forgot or deplored his plighted vows to his good little cousin. To shorten the story, the cousin released him. In a few days the curate and the widow were married. Ann was utterly neglected, ignored, and forgotten. Her lessons, which, before the advent of the handsome curate, had been the widow's care, were now suspended. Time went on, and these ardent lovers cooled off. Not that their youth or health or beauty waned; not at all; but that their illusions were fading. Yet, as often happens, as love cooled, jealousy warmed to life—each one conscious of indifference toward the other, yet resented a corresponding indifference in the other. As years went on, six children were born to this unhappy pair, whom not the Lord but the devil had joined together, and with their increasing family came increasing poverty. It was hard to support a growing household on one hundred pounds a year.
"In the seventh year of their marriage, in desperation, the Reverend Raphael advertised his ability and readiness to 'prepare young men for college.' He obtained but one pupil one Alfred Whyte, the son of a retired brewer. You perceive that he had the same surname with the young Ann, but it was spelled differently—with a y, instead of an i, as her name was. He seems to have been a fine, hearty, good natured young fellow, about twenty years of age, with a short, stout form, a round, red face, and dark eyes and hair. He hated study, but loved children, animals, and out-door sports. It was in the course of nature that he should fall in love with the fair fifteen-year-old beauty Ann White.
"She returned his affection because since her father's death he was the only human being who had ever been kind to her. The first year that he spent at the parsonage was the happiest year Ann had ever known. Before it drew to an end, however, their happiness was clouded. The young man had over and over again assured the girl of his love for her, and at last he asked her to marry him. She consented. Then he wrote and asked permission of his father to wed the curate's step-daughter.
"The answer might have been anticipated. The purse-proud retired brewer, who had dreams of his only son and heir going into Parliament and marrying some impoverished nobleman's daughter, wrote two furious letters, one to his son, commanding his immediate return home, and another to the Rev. Raphael Rosslynn, reproaching him with having entrapped his pupil into an engagement with his pauper step-daughter.
"We can judge the effect of these letters upon the peace of the parsonage.
"The Reverend Raphael commanded his pupil into his presence, and after severely censuring him for his conduct in 'betraying the confidence of the family who had received him into its bosom,' he requested that Master Whyte should leave the house with all convenient speed.
"The youth urged that he had meant no harm and had done no harm, that he was honestly in love with the young lady, and had honestly asked leave to marry her, and that he certainly would marry her—
"'Though mammy and daddy and all gang mad.'
"Mr. Rosslynn referred him to his father's letter and ordered him to depart. And then the reverend gentleman went to his wife's room and bitterly reproached her that her forward girl had been the cause of his losing his pupil and eighty pounds a year.
"She told him that the fault was his own; that he should never have received a young man as a resident pupil in the house where there was a young girl.
"A fierce quarrel ensued, which was ended at last by the reverend gentleman going out and banging the door behind him with a force that shook the house, and in a state of mind that rendered him singularly unfit to read the prayers for the sick beside the bed of a dying parishioner to whom he was urgently summoned.
"Mrs. Rosslynn immediately hastened to wreak her vengeance on her step-daughter. She set her teeth as she seized the unlucky girl, whom she found at work in the kitchen, pushed her roughly on into the narrow passage up the steep stairs and into the little back loft that the child called her own bedroom.
"Here she took a firmer grip upon the girl, and with a dog whip that she had hastily snatched from the hat rack in passing, she lashed the hapless creature over back and shoulder.
"Ann never struggled or cried out, but held her tongue in fierce wrath and stubborn endurance. Could that woman, the victim of all ungovernable passions, have but known what she did, or foreseen its results!
"At last she ceased, pushed the bruised and wounded child away from her, sank panting to a chair, and as soon as she recovered her breath, began to insult and abuse the orphan child of her deceased husband, charging her with disgracing the house by improper conduct, of which the girl had never even dreamed; accusing her of causing the loss of their pupil and the income derived from him, and reproaching her for making discord between herself (Mrs. Rosslynn) and her husband.
"Ann replied by not one word.
"At length the maddened woman, having talked herself out of breath, got up, left the room, and locked the door, not on her victim alone, but on all the evil spirits she had raised from Tartarus and left with the girl.
"Ann sank upon the bed, weeping, moaning, and grinding her teeth, her body prostrated by pain, her soul filled with bitter wrath and scorn toward one whom she should rather have been led to love and honor. In the fiery torture of her flesh and the humiliation of her spirit she uttered but these piteous words:
"'Oh, my own mother!—oh, my lost father! do you see your child?'
"For more than an hour she lay there before the fierce smarting and burning of her scourged flesh began to subside. The short November afternoon darkened into night. No one came near her. The hour for supper passed. No one called her to the meal. She heard the family passing to their rooms. She heard her mother putting the other children to bed—a duty that she herself had hitherto performed. At last all sounds died away in the house, and she knew that all the inmates had retired, and the lights were out. She was meditating to run away; she did not know in what direction, or to what end, farther than to escape from the home that was hateful to her.
"Evil spirits were with her, suggesting many desperate thoughts; at length they infused a deadly, horrible temptation to a deed of self-destruction so ghastly that its discovery should appal the family, the parish, and the whole world; that should cover her tormentors with shame, reproach and infamy.
"She sprang up from her bed and went to search in the drawer of a little old wooden stand, until she found a half page of note paper and a bit of lead pencil.
"She took them out and wrote to her persecutors, saying that she was going to throw herself—not into the sea, nor from a precipice, because both earth and sea give up their dead—but into the quicksands, which never give up anything; they, her tormentors, should never even see again the body they had bruised and torn and degraded; and she prayed that the Lord would ever deal by them as they had dealt with her.
"It must have been near midnight when she heard a tap at her window, so light that at first she thought it was made by a large raindrop; but presently her name was softly called by a voice that she recognized. Then she understood it all, and her thoughts of the quicksands vanished.
"Her room was a small one in the rear of the house, immediately over the back kitchen, and her back window opened upon the roof of the wood shed behind the kitchen. She went and hoisted the window, and there on the roof of the wood shed stood Alfred Whyte.
"He told her that he had taken leave of the ogre and the ogress hours before, and they thought he was off to London by the four o'clock mail; but that he had gone no farther than the railway station, where he had bought a ticket, and had gone on the platform, as if to wait for his train; but when it came up, instead of taking his place on it, he had slipped away in the confusion of its arrival and had hidden himself in the woods on the other side of the road, where he had waited until it was dark, when he had come back to watch the parsonage until every one should have gone to bed, so that he could get speech with Ann.
"And then he asked her if she were 'game for a bolt?"
"She did not understand him; but when he next spoke plainly, and inquired if she would run away with him and be married, she answered promptly that she would.
"He told her to get ready quickly, and to dress warmly, for the night was damp and cold, and to tie up a little bundle of things that she might need on the journey; but not to take much, because he had plenty of money, and could buy her all she needed.
"'Much;' Poor little thing, she had not much to take! She put on her best dress—a well-worn blue serge—a coarse, black cloth walking jacket, and a little straw hat with a faded blue ribbon. She had no gloves. She tied up a hair brush, worn nearly to the wood, a tooth brush not much better, the half of a broken dressing comb, and one clean linen collar, in a small pocket handkerchief, and she was all ready for her wedding trip.
"He told her to bolt her door before she came out, because that would take the ogres some little while to force it open, and would give the fugitives a better start.
"Ann did everything her boy lover directed, and finally stepped out of the window on to the roof below, and joined him. He let down the window, and closed the shutters with a spring that securely fastened them.
"That, he told her, would certainly give them a longer start, for it would take an hour at least to force the room open and discover her flight.
"Then they left the parsonage together.
"She had forgotten all about the parting note of malediction which she had left behind her on the stand, as she stepped along the lane leading to the highway.
"He asked her to take his arm, and when they reached the public road, he inquired if she were game for a ten mile walk.
"She told him that she could walk to the end of the world with him, because she was so happy to be beside the only one on earth who had ever been kind to her—since her father's death.
"Then he explained the steps that he had taken, and must still take, to elude pursuit; how that he had gone to the railway station and bought a first class ticket for the four o'clock express to London, and afterward, when the train came up, he had mingled with the crowd getting off and getting on, and so eluded observation, and had slipped away and hidden himself in the thicket until dark, so as to make every one concerned believe that he had gone off by the mail train alone to London.
"Now he told her that they must trudge straight on ten miles north, to take the train to Glasgow; so that while people were hunting for them in the south, they would be safe in the north.
"As they walked on he told her that he wanted to get away from England and see the world—the new world across the ocean. He had seen Europe summer after summer, traveling with his father and mother on the Continent. Now he wanted to see America; and asked her if she did not also.
"She told him that she wanted to see every place that he wanted to see, and to go everywhere he wanted to go, for that he was the only friend she had in all the wide world.
"So they walked on for about three hours, and then, about two o'clock in the morning, they reached the little railway station of Skelton. They had to wait two hours for the parliamentary train, which came heavily puffing in about five o'clock on that November morning.
"Young Whyte took second class tickets, and led his closely veiled companion to her seat on the train. And they moved off.
"They reached Glasgow about ten o'clock the next day, and found that there was a steamer bound for New York, to sail at noon. No time was to be lost, so they both went to the agency together, represented themselves as a newly married pair, and engaged the only stateroom to be procured—which happened to be in the second cabin. Their tickets were filled in with the names of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Whyte—which indeed constituted a legal marriage in Scotland, where a marriageable pair of lovers have only to declare themselves man and wife, in the presence of competent witnesses, to be as lawfully married as if the ceremony had been performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in his own cathedral.
"They took possession of their stateroom on the Caledonian, which sailed at noon of the same day, and in due time arrived at New York.
"They spent two days at an uptown hotel, and then took the pretty cottage at Harlem, in which they lived for several months. Ann's boy-husband often told her that she grew prettier every day, and he seemed to grow fonder of her every day. He supplied her with a nicer outfit of clothing and more pocket money than she had ever had in her poverty-stricken life, and made her much happier every way than she had ever been before, as long as his money lasted.
"He had left England with nearly one hundred pounds in his pocket—the amount of his half-yearly allowance.
"On his arrival in New York, he had written to his father and confessed his marriage with his tutor's step-daughter and begged forgiveness and—remittances.
"Ann declined to write to her step-mother or the curate, declaring that she preferred that they should believe that she had been driven by their cruelty to bury herself in the quicksands, and that they should suffer all the remorse of conscience and reprobation of society that their conduct toward her deserved.
"But weeks passed, on and no letter filled with blessings and bank notes came from the offended and obdurate father, though the boy constantly assured his girl-wife that the expected epistle would surely come in time, for he was the 'old man's' only son, whom he would not be likely to discard.
"Meanwhile their money was running low. The youth was anxious to travel and see the new world, and to take his bride with him, but he could not do so without funds. At the end of six weeks after he had written the first letter to his father he wrote a second, but received no answer; later still he wrote a third, with no better success.
"They had gone a little into debt, in order to eke out their little ready money until the longed-for letters of credit should come from England; but at the end of six months credit and cash were nearly exhausted.
"One morning in May the boy-husband took leave of the girl-wife, saying, as he kissed her good-by, that he was going down into the city to see if he could get some work to do.
"Without the least misgiving, she received his farewell kiss, and saw him depart—watched him all the way down the street, until he got to Second Avenue and boarded a down-town car.
"Then she re-entered the little gate, and began to tend the jonquils and hyacinths that were just coming into bloom in her little flower garden. She did not expect to see him until night, nor—did she see him even then. When the little gate opened at eight o'clock and a man came up the walk leading to the front door at which she stood, he was not her husband, but the letter carrier, who put a letter in her hand and went away.
"She ran into the house, and lighted the gas to read her letter. Though it gave her a shock, it did not shake her faith in her boy.
"The letter told her, in effect, that Alfred Whyte, when he left her that morning, had started to go to England in the only way by which he could get there—that is, by working his passage as a deck hand on board an outward bound ship; that he had decided on this course so as to get a personal interview with his father, to whom he would go as a penitent prodigal son; for he was sure of obtaining by this means forgiveness, and assistance that would enable him to return and bring his little wife back to England, where they would thenceforth live in comfort and luxury; that the reason he had not confided to her his intention of making the voyage was because he dreaded opposition from her that might have led him to abandon the one plan by which he hoped to better their condition.
"He concluded by entreating her not to think for one instant that he intended to desert her, who was dearer to him than his own life, but to trust in him as he trusted in her. In a postscript he told her where to find the small balance of money they had left, as he had only taken enough for his car fare to the city. In a second postscript he promised to write by every opportunity. In a third and last postscript he begged her to keep up her heart.
"It seemed a frank letter, yet it was reticent upon one point—the name of the ship on which he had sailed. This omission might have been accidental. It certainly did not raise any doubt of the boy's good faith in the mind of the girl.
"She cried a great deal over the separation from her lad, and she made a confidant of the elderly Irishwoman who was her sole servant.
"After two weeks, Ann began to watch daily for the letter carrier, in hope of getting a letter from Alfred; but day after day, week after week, passed and none came. But there came news of the wreck of the Porpoise, which had sailed from New York for London on the very day that Alfred Whyte had left the country—and which had gone down in a storm in mid-ocean with all on board.
"But as numerous ships had left New York on that day bound for various British ports, it was impossible to discover whether the boy was on board, or if he shipped under his own name or an assumed one.
"Ann cried more than ever for a few days, but then seemed to give up her lad for lost, and to resign herself to the 'inevitable.'
"She wrote to Mr. Alfred Whyte, Senior, but got no reply to her letter; again and again she wrote with no better success. The little balance of money left by her boy-husband was all gone. She began to sell off the trifles of jewelry that he had given her.
"One morning the letter carrier left a letter with a London postmark containing a bill of exchange for a hundred pounds, and not one word besides.
"Had it come from her boy-husband, or from his father? She could not tell.
"Well, to be brief, she never saw nor heard of him again. She lived comfortably with her motherly old servant, enjoyed life thoroughly and grew more beautiful every day, and this fool's paradise lasted as long as her money did. Before her last dollar was gone, she saw the advertisement in the Pursuivant for a nursery governess, and answered it, as has been told.
"This, my dear Cora, is the substance of the story told me by Ann White on the day that I called on her in answer to her letter. What do you think of it?" inquired Mr. Fabian when he had finished his narrative.
"I think the cruel neglect of her step-parents and the sufferings of her childhood accountable for all her faults, and I feel very sorry for her, notwithstanding that she seems to be a very heartless animal," replied Corona.
"That is the secret of the wonderful preservation of her youth and beauty even up to this present time. Nothing wears a woman out as fast as her own heart."
"You engaged her as you promised to do, but why did you introduce her at Rockhold as a single girl, and why under an alias?" gravely inquired Corona.
"I introduced her as a single girl at her own request because of her extreme youth and her timidity. She naturally shrank from being known as a discarded wife or a doubtful widow. Besides, I never did say she was a single girl. I merely presented her as Rose Flowers, and left it to be inferred from her baby face that she was so."
"But why Rose Flowers when her name was Ann White?"
"What a cross-questioner you are, Corona! but I will answer you. Again it was by her own desire that I presented her as Rose Flowers, which was not an alias, as she explained to me, but a part of her true name. She had been baptized as Rose Anna Flowers, which was the maiden name of her grandmother, her father's mother."
Cora might have asked another question, not so easily answered, if she had known the circumstances to which it related, namely: why Mr. Fabian had fabricated that false story of the young governess which he palmed upon his parents; but, in fact, Cora, at that time a child seven years old, had never heard of it. But she made another inquiry.
"What became of Rose Flowers after she left us? Did she really go to another place? Who was—Captain Stillwater?"
"Mr. Fabian drove slowly and thoughtfully on without answering her question until she had repeated it. Then he said:
"Cora, my dear, that is a story I cannot tell you. Let it be enough for me to say, the Stillwater episode in the life of this lady is the ground upon which I forbid my wife to visit her and object to my niece associating with her."
"Does Violet know the Stillwater story?"
"No; not so much of it even as you have heard. Now, look here, Cora, you think it inconsistent perhaps that I should have brought this woman to Rockhold years ago to become your governess, and now, when she is my father's wife, object to your intimacy with her. In the first instance she has been far, very far, 'more sinned against than sinning;' she had been very imprudent, that was all. She was really the wife, by Scotch law, of the boy she ran away with and then lost. I saw nothing in her case that ought to prevent her entrance into a respectable family, and Heaven knows I pitied her and tried to save her by bringing her to Rockhold. I saved her only for a few years. After she left us—but there, I cannot tell you that story! You must not be intimate with her."
"Yet she is my grandfather's wife!"
"An irreparable misfortune. I can't expose her life to him; such a blow to his pride might be his death, at his age. No! events must take their course; but I hope he will not take her to any place where she is likely to be recognized. Nor do I think he will. He is aging fast, and will be likely to live quietly at Rockhold."
"And I think she also would avoid such risks. She was terribly frightened when she recognized the Dean of Olivet. Was he really her stepfather, the once poor curate?"
"Yes. You see while they were lionizing him in the Eastern cities, his portrait, with a short biographical notice, was published in one of the illustrated weeklies, where I read of him, and identified him by comparing notes with what I had heard."
"How came he to rise so high?"
"Oh, he was a learned divine and eloquent orator. He was well connected, too. It would seem that a very few months after his step-daughter's flight he was inducted into that rich living for which he had been waiting so many years. From that position his rise was slow indeed, covering a period of twenty years, until a few months ago, when he was made Dean of Olivet."
"To think that a man capable of quarreling with his wife and ill-using their step-child should fill so sacred a position in the church!" exclaimed Cora.
"Yes; but you see, my dear, the church is his profession, not his vocation. He is a brilliant pulpit orator, with influential friends; but every brilliant pulpit orator is not necessarily a saint. And as for his quarreling with his wife and ill-using their step-daughter, we have heard but one side of that story."
When they entered the Rockhold drawing room they found Mrs. Rockharrt alone. She arose and came forward and received them with a smile.
"Your grandfather, my dear," she explained to Cora, "came home later than usual from North End, and very much more than usually fatigued. Immediately after dinner he lay down and I left him asleep."
"Where is Uncle Clarence?" inquired Corona.
"He remains at the works for the night. Will you have this chair, love?" said Rose, pulling forward a luxurious "sleepy hollow."
"No, thank you. I must go to my room and change my dress. Will you excuse me for half an hour, Uncle Fabian?" inquired Cora.
"Most willingly, my dear," replied Mr. Fabian, with a very pleased look. Cora left the room.
"I will go with you," exclaimed Rose, turning pale and starting up to follow the young lady.
"No. You will not," said Mr. Fabian, in a tone of authority, as he laid his hand heavily on the woman's shoulder. "Sit down. I have something to say to you."