Very suddenly a change came. Sir Watkin Strahan had left England, not for a shooting tour in North America, as it had been understood, but on account of pecuniary embarrassments, brought on by his extravagant habits. It was hinted that he was about to marry a fortune, ‘but that matters little,’ said the informant to poor Rose; ‘he loves you and you love him. The hard necessities of his situation will compel him to go through the form of matrimony with another, but that is no reason why you two should not be virtually man and wife.’ The Baronet said as much in the impassioned letters which he sent to Rose. He had lost, he regretted to say, heavily on the turf and at play. He had made some unfortunate speculations on the Stock Exchange. He had travelled to repair his losses at Homburg, and Baden, and Spa, and there he had made matters worse. His friends had insisted on his getting married, promising pecuniary assistance if he did. They did more. They found out for him a fitting heiress. A rich merchant had an only daughter whom he was willing to part with for a consideration—that she should be called my lady. As the lady was anxious for a title, and the gentleman was equally anxious to finger her cash, there was little reason for delay. Indeed, it was felt on all sides that the sooner the business was settled the better. The lady and gentleman had met, and been mutually satisfied with one another. The Baronet, so proud of his title, had sold himself for a mess of pottage. That was a very shabby thing to do; but he did something still shabbier, he implied that to Rose it would make no difference—that she would still be the dearest object to his heart. Poor girl! she felt the insult bitterly.
‘It was the way of the world,’ said her new friends. ‘It was only what she need expect. She must have been a fool to think that it would be otherwise.’ So said her London friends to her. Well, she owned she had been a fool. She had never meant to be a rich man’s mistress. The Baronet had overwhelmed her with his wealth and magnificence. He had treated her with such consideration that she never expected anything from him other than what was right and honourable, and she had been prepared to give him all she could in return—her heart. Further than that she could never go. She would never be what he wished her to be for all his wealth. Her dream was over, and she woke to find herself helpless, friendless, poor, and alone. It was a bitter awakening for her. It would have broken her heart, and ruined her life, had it not been for her youthful pluck, and spirit, and pride. The man of the world who believes woman to be as bad as himself, who quotes Pope and tells us that every woman is at heart a rake, will tell me I have drawn an unreal girl. I tell him there are thousands of such in the homes of the poor, and it is because there are such that England is still a nation great and grand.
But to return to our heroine.
When the dishonourable proposal was made to her—a proposal which she could not at first understand, veiled as it was in artful language—all her pride was in arms, her anger was aroused, and her love was turned to hate. In her wrath she left the house, leaving behind her letters, books, jewellery, dresses, everything that had been given her, and, dressed in the simple style of her former life, she went out into the world shedding bitter tears, and not knowing where to go. Sad and mad, she walked the streets of London alone—streets in which it is more dangerous for a pretty girl to walk along, and at night, than it would be among Kaffir or Hottentots. She had given no one any intimation of her going, or as to what her intentions were. She had escaped from the destroyer, that was enough for her. A stranger to London, she wandered wearily about, till she came to a street with a blaze of light streaming from the shop windows on every side, crowded with cabs and carriages, whilst the pavement was so filled up as to render locomotion almost impossible.
What she saw struck her with astonishment and horror. She had never heard of such a thing, and did not believe it possible. It was night, and yet the place was as busy as if it were day. There were women in full dress from the adjacent theatres, other in couples or hanging on the arms of men, who might have been officers in the army and navy or members of the swell mob. There were similar parties in hansoms and broughams. Intermixed with them were beggars, and pickpockets, and swindlers, and outcasts, and all the riffraff of a London street. Rose watched the broughams, and saw them setting down their inmates at a building which bore to her a name of no meaning. She watched awhile, and then, advancing to the door and paying her shilling, found herself in a dancing casino of a rather superior character. The walls were lined with seats on which men and women were seated. There was a bar at one end at which a good deal of chaffing and smoking and drinking were going on. Up in the gallery was a German band, and, as they played, some danced, while others looked on. Poor Rose was frightened beyond description at the appearance of all around her. The air was full of oaths and laughter, and all were gay, gay as wine could make them, from Lord Tom Noddy drinking himself into del. trem., to the last ticket-of-leave from Her Majesty’s jails. Rose had never seen so many vagabonds collected together under a roof before, and they were all gay—the painted harlots, the City men, the Jew money-lenders, the clerk who had come to spend the proceeds of his latest embezzlement, the scheming M.P., the jockey from Newmarket, the prize-fighter from Whitechapel, the greenhorn from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Pulling her veil over her face, Rose stood in a corner by herself, trembling and alone, afraid to remain, yet afraid to go away, fearing she might be stopped. Already she found herself remarked on and pointed at; already she had seen in the crowded and heated room more than one of the boon companions of her quondam lover. What was she to do? She had never dreamt of such awful degradation as she saw there. She had never believed in its existence. She thought such a place would have never been tolerated by the police, and impossible in a Christian land. Men jeered at her, as she stood with the hot blood crimsoning her cheek, while the made-up women around seemed, to her, grinning over her impending fall. Was she to become one of them—to renounce all modesty and virtue, to drink of the wine-cup offered her on every side, in the delirium of the hour to enlist in the devil’s service, to put on his livery and to take his pay? Well, she was poor, but not so poor as all that—as long as she had the use of her senses. Better poverty itself than a life of shame. For awhile she stood dazed and frightened, forgetting where she was, and that all eyes were upon her. Presently she was recalled to herself by a gentleman coming up and asking her to dance. She refused.
‘Then what the d--- are you here for?’ was his rough reply.
She turned away speechless—horror-struck—especially as she saw the amusement of the half-tipsy bystanders.
‘A deuced fine girl, upon my word!’
‘Fresh as Hebe,’ said another.
‘Artfulness itself,’ was the remark of another.