IT was ten o’clock in the morning, and Rose was clipping the dead
leaves from her flowers in the bow-window of the library, while Judge
Temple still read the morning paper in his great high-backed chair; a
shaft of sunlight stealing through the open carving touched his scanty
white hair and showed the crumpled lines of the blue veins on his
temples. He was an old man; he had married late in life and Rose, the
youngest born and only survivor of five children, was proportionately
dear to him. There was a warm sympathy between them and a companionship
beautiful to see.
“There’s some trouble in the Cabinet,” he observed, as he turned his
paper; “there are hints here about Wicklow White.”
Rose looked thoughtful but continued to arrange her flowers. “Margaret
seems very unhappy and very gay, as usual,” she remarked softly.
“Too gay, my dear,” the judge commented; “old-fashioned fogies like
myself get easily shocked. Never go to her dressmaker!”
Rose laughed, her scissors sparkling in the sun. “Why, father, people
rave about her and copy her everywhere.”
“Let them,” said the judge dryly, “let them--but not my daughter! Rose,
I’d--I’d whip you!”
“You never did that in your life,” she smiled, “I’m almost tempted to
try it and see.”
“Better not,” he retorted grimly, taking off his spectacles and putting
them into his pocket; “you’d get a lesson!”
“Poor Margaret!” Rose colored a little; she had caught the glance which
Margaret had bestowed on her and Fox.
“Poor fiddlesticks!” replied the judge, rising and folding his paper;
“she’s made her bed, child, and she must lie on it; that’s the law of
life; we reap as we sow.”
Rose looked across at him affectionately, but she was wondering what he
thought of William Fox; she had never dared to ask. “It’s a hard law,
father,” she said gently, “we all want to be happy.”
“You will be--just in proportion to your right to be,” he retorted
calmly; “it’s a matter of the heart anyway, Rose, and not of external
matters.”
“I suppose so,” she replied, with a slight sigh; “but one would like to
have externals and internals agree, don’t you think?”
The old man laughed pleasantly. “Most of us would,” he admitted, “but
we never have our way in this world, not in my observation.”
As he spoke there was a stir in the hall, and a young girl appeared at
the drawing-room door.
“It’s Gertrude English,” Rose said; “don’t go yet, father, I’ll take
her away.”
But it appeared that the judge had to go to court, and he went out,
patting little Miss English on the shoulder as he passed. “We children
grow,” he said laughing.
“I wish I’d grown more,” she retorted ruefully; “everybody calls me ‘a
little thing,’ and I’m not, really, I’m five feet four.”
“Napoleon was small,” remarked the judge teasingly, “and William Third
and Louis Fourteenth.”
“I know what you think of two of those!” objected Gertrude; “we
remember our history lessons here, don’t we, Rose?”
“Well--but when a rogue’s famous!” said the judge, and went out smiling
at his own jest.
Miss English walked over to the window and watched Rose water her
plants and turn them religiously to the sun.
“Take off your hat, Gertrude,” she said pleasantly; “you really look
tired; can’t you stay awhile?”
Gertrude shook her head. “No,” she said firmly; “I’ve got about a
million notes to write for Margaret and the lunch cards to get ready
for to-morrow; to-night she dines the President. I’m tired of it; I
wish I could make money cracking stones!”
“Poor Gerty!” Rose looked at her with gentle concern; “you’re very
pale, you look as if you hadn’t slept.”
“I haven’t,” said Miss English flatly, “not a wink.”
“I hope Margaret doesn’t make you work late,” Rose murmured, beginning
to search again for dead leaves.
“Margaret?” the little secretary sat down and leaned her elbows on her
knees, her chin in her hands; “Rose, I’m so sorry for her!”
“She seems gay enough,” Rose observed quietly.
“I should say so! I was there very late last night; it was one of her
entertainments, and little Ward was sick. I sat with him. You know she
treats the children sometimes like playthings, and again--like rats!
I was in the nursery watching him and helping the nurse until all the
guests went. Then I went down stairs; I wanted to tell Margaret what
I’d done, and I went to the ballroom door. She didn’t hear me call to
her, and I went back up stairs feeling like a sneak. She was there with
Mr. Fox and she was crying dreadfully when I saw her.”
Rose’s scissors clipped sharply and a fresh young twig fell unnoticed
to the floor. There was a long pause. Miss English had mechanically
taken off her gloves and she was drawing them through her fingers, her
face full of honest trouble.
“After awhile she came up stairs,” she continued, “and came into the
room where I was--”
“Gertrude,” interrupted Rose suddenly, “ought you to tell me this?”
“Every one will know soon,” said Gertrude dryly; “she came over and
looked at the child and said she was glad he was better--he was asleep
then and the nurse had gone out of the room for some extra milk.
Margaret’s face was white, and her eyes--I never saw her eyes so
wonderful. Suddenly she flung her arms around my neck and began to cry,
softly so as not to wake the child. She told me--she’s going to get a
divorce!”
Rose put aside her scissors and sat down, looking across at Gertrude
with a strange expression, but she said nothing.
Miss English sighed, folding her gloves again. “Of course I know how
bad it’s been,” she said; “he’s a brute to her sometimes and swears at
her before everybody but, well, Rose, don’t you think you’d swear at
Margaret if you had to live with her?”
Rose smiled a little, her lips pale. “I don’t know, Gerty,” she said,
“I never did--in my life.”
“Didn’t you?” Miss English sighed again; “well,” she said, “when you’re
poor, downright, disgustingly poor, you just have to say ‘damn’ once in
awhile, if you didn’t you’d kill somebody!”
“But White isn’t poor,” objected Rose, “he’s only vulgar.”
“Well, of course there’s Lily Osborne,” Gertrude shrugged her
shoulders; “there won’t be any trouble about the divorce in the State
of New York or anywhere else, I fancy! I wonder if she means to go to
Omaha.”
“Do you believe it’s really settled?” Rose asked, with a strong
feeling of self-abasement; she thought herself a scandal-monger, an
unworthy creature, but her heart quaked within her with an unspoken
dread, and Miss English’s next remarks drove it home.
“Without doubt,” she said; “I know it is and,”--she colored a little
and looked out of the window at the April sunshine on the garden
wall--“Rose, do you believe she’ll marry William Fox?” she whispered.
Rose sat regarding her and said nothing. What could she say, poor
child? That vividly pictured scene of Margaret weeping and Fox as her
comforter was burning deep, and Rose had been brought up by an Old
Testament Christian!
“It would be a great pity,” Miss English observed, after a long
silence; “it would ruin Mr. Fox--people would say _everything_.”
Rose colored painfully. “People say very cruel things, Gerty,” she said
slowly, “and, perhaps, we’re as bad as any just now.”
Gertrude shook her head vigorously, her pleasant round face flushing
a little too. “I don’t mean to be,” she said, “of course it’s a great
temptation; we secretaries know everything, it’s like turning a dress
inside out and finding the lining’s only paper-cambric with a silk
facing; it’s all a big sham, we’re on the inside and know! But,
goodness, it would ruin Fox, and I know, Rose, I know she’s in love
with him.”
Rose looked steadily away; she, too, saw the ivy leaves fluttering
gently in the sunshine as the light breeze rippled across them.
Miss English sighed. “Well,” she said, “I don’t care; Margaret’s so
unhappy, it seems as if she ought to try over again, only there are the
children. I forgot though, Rose, you’re very stiff-necked; I suppose
you hate divorces?”
Rose shook her head. “I don’t believe in marriage after divorce,” she
said; she was very young and she had rigid standards, like a great many
people who have never had to test them in their hearts’ blood.
Gertrude English opened her mild blue eyes. “Don’t you?” she said, “I
didn’t, either, until I saw Margaret; then I began to think it was
awful to have to live out a mistake; and there’s White too; really he’s
had his trials. I don’t know whether it would be wicked or not for her
to marry again.”
“It isn’t Scriptural,” said Rose firmly, her face colorless now.
Miss English rose and began to put on her gloves. “Well, there isn’t
any marrying or giving in marriage in heaven,” she remarked, “so I
suppose most of us have got to do it all here. As far as I’m concerned,
I don’t find any rush for a poor girl. It’s amazing to me that the male
creatures can’t see the advantages of the habit of economy!” she added,
with a good humored laugh.
“I wish you’d stay to lunch,” said Rose mechanically; she had not
Gerty’s keen sense of humor, and her heart felt like lead in her bosom.
“I can’t!” the little secretary went to the mirror and adjusted her
hat-pins; “I’ve got to go and write notes. Margaret has no head, and
she’s probably in bed now. You know she really has heart trouble; I
shouldn’t wonder if she died in one of her fandangoes.”
“And she’s talking of divorce and marriage!” Rose looked gravely into
the other girl’s troubled face.
“Of course; isn’t it like her?” Miss English moved slowly to the door,
buttoning her gloves, and Rose followed.
In the hall she turned. “After all, who’s to blame?” she said stoutly;
“Margaret’s awfully unhappy, and Fox--goodness, he used to almost
live there, he was there to everything until that row with White over
the Cabinet business. I’d like to know what you think of him, Miss
Moralist, a man who flirts with a married woman!”
“I try not to think of it,” Rose replied quietly.
Miss English had opened the door and the sunlight streamed in. “Oh,
good gracious!” she exclaimed; “why, Rose, what’s the matter? You’re as
white as a sheet!”
“I’ve--I’ve got a headache,” Rose faltered, the fib lodging in her
throat, for she had been reared to tell the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth.
“And I’ve been teasing you! I’m a brute. Go and lie down, you poor
dear!” Gertrude kissed her affectionately and penitently; “try
phospho-caffein; your hands are like ice!”
“Oh, it’s nothing--only a headache,” fibbed Rose, more easily
the second time; she realized it with a shudder. The way of the
transgressor is not always hard, the road is wide, also it is
agreeable--but she had not discovered that yet!
“I’ll stop by to-night and inquire,” said Gertrude.
But Rose shivered at the thought of continued deception. “Oh, I’ll be
all right,” she called after her visitor, then she closed the door and
laid her head against it; everything turned dark for a minute and swam
around her.
She went back to the library and picking up her scissors put them away,
and quite mechanically arranged her father’s chair and his footrest and
looked up the book he would want in the evening. She tried not to let
her mind dwell too much on what Miss English had told her, but her lips
tightened and her eyes darkened with controlled emotion. She had led,
hitherto, a happy, sheltered life, she had never suffered much, and her
capacity for suffering was very great. Her character, which was just
emerging from the malleable sweetness of girlhood, had begun to feel
the impress of her father’s stern morality. With Rose right was right,
and wrong was wrong; there was no middle course. She had an exalted
conception of duty and the sacrifices that one should be ready to make
for a principle. She had never tested any of these admirable theories
in the fiery furnace of temptation, but she had a shadowy notion that
if she had lived in the age of Nero she should have offered her body
to be burned to save her soul alive. It is unfortunate for some of the
modern Christian martyrs that they did not live at that time; a diet
of prepared breakfast foods and French entrées is not conducive to the
production of heroes.
Rose had been so happy the day before, the birth of a new and
beautiful emotion had so transfigured her young soul, that this sudden
and dreadful revelation was in the nature of a thunderbolt from a clear
sky; her heart shrivelled and shrank within her. Yet to question Fox,
to doubt him was, to her simple, loyal nature a hideous possibility.