Christmas Roses and Other Stories

by Anne Douglas Sedgwick

Yes—she knew it. Yet tears had risen to Rosamund’s eyes. Dear old Charlie; dear, old, tiresome Charlie! The tears had come as she saw him standing to look after her and his boys; but there was nothing more, nothing that she could give to Pamela, not one crumb of enrichment from what Pamela believed to be her great store. Pamela had seen all—and more than all—that there was to see.

In her own silence now she was aware of a growing oppression. She was too silent, even for one mute from the depth and sacredness of memory. Might not such silence seem to reprove Pamela’s flooding confidence? She struggled with her thoughts. “The lapwings?” she heard herself murmuring. “I remember his showing me a nest. How he loved birds and how much he knew about them! Weren’t you with us on the day we put up all the nesting-boxes here? Do you remember how he planned for the placing of each one, each bird to have its own appropriate domain? It was a lovely day, in very early spring.”

“Oh—do you remember that?” How Pamela craved the crumb was shown by her lightened face; it was almost happy, as it turned to Rosamund, with its sense of recovered treasures. "Very early spring—March. Snowdrops were up over there,—and there,—and there were daffodils at the foot of the wall. You were in blue: a frieze coat and skirt of Japanese blue, with a grey silk scarf and a little soft grey hat with a blue wing in it; and you said,—you were standing just over there, near the pond,—‘We can always count on tits.’—But you did get robins, too, and thrushes in the big boxes; and then the splendid year when the nut-hatches came to the box down in the orchard. And you were tying up one box, but it was too high and he came and did it for you. I can see you both so plainly, your hands stretching up against the sky. Tall as you are he was taller; his head seemed to tower up into the branches. Such a blue sky it was! And afterwards we had tea in the drawing-room, and the tea wasn’t strong enough for him, and you liked China and he Indian tea. And you teased him and said that you had always to make him the little brown pot all for himself. He said, ‘Tea never tastes so right as out of a brown pot.’ There were white tulips growing in a bowl on the tea-table. And then you played to us. And you sang—‘I need no star in heaven to guide me.’—He was so fond of that. Oh, do you remember it all, too?"

All—all. Rosamund, though her tears fell, felt her cheek flushing in the darkness. How often he had asked for "I need no star in heaven to guide me"! How often she had sung it to him, rejoicing so soon, while she threw the proper tumultuous fervour that Charlie loved into the foolish air, in the atoning thought that already Philip’s favourite was “Der Nussbaum” and that even little Giles asked for “the sheep song,” the bleak, beautiful old Scottish strain: “Ca' the yowes to the knowes,” with its sweetest drop to “my bonnie dearie.” “Oh—give us something cheerful!” Charlie would exclaim after it.

“I remember it all, dear,” she answered; and there was silence for a while.

“How do you bear it?” Pamela whispered suddenly.

The hour, the stillness, the hands that held her, drew her past the last barrier. Her broken heart yearned for the comfort that the greater loss alone could give. What was the strength that enabled his wife to sit there so quietly, so gently, so full of peace and pity?

Rosamund felt herself faltering, stumbling, as she heard the inevitable question, and knew, as it came, that even Pamela’s heavenly blindness might not protect her, unless she could be very careful, from horrid loss or suspicion. To touch with a breath of her daylight reality that silver world of recollection would be to desecrate. Could she hold her breath and tread softly while she answered? Yes, surely. Surely she, who had hidden through all the years from Charlie, could hide from Pamela, although Pamela already was nearer than Charlie and knew her better than he had ever done. All the old strength and resource welled up in her, protecting this lovely thing, as, after the long moment, not looking at Pamela, but into Charlie’s garden, she found the right answer.

“You see, dear, it is so different with me. You have only your memories. I have the boys—his boys—to live for.”

It was right. It was the only answer. She heard Pamela’s long, soft breaths, full of a gentle awe, and felt her hand more tightly clasped. Once the right step was taken, it was easier to go on: