[Illustration: THE ROSE OF MY STORY WAS HALF-SITTING, HALF-RECLINING AT
HIS FEET.]
A ROSE IN JUNE.
BY
MRS. OLIPHANT.
[FROM ADVANCE SHEETS.]
_ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE DU MAURIER._
[Illustration: colophon]
BOSTON:
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY.
LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.
181 FRANKLIN STREET.
1874.
[Illustration]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
[_Drawn by George Du Maurier._]
PAGE
THE ROSE OF MY STORY WAS HALF-SITTING, HALF-RECLINING AT
HIS FEET _Frontispiece_
THE GIRL STOOD MOTIONLESS, SUBDUED BY IT 29
THEY WERE INTERRUPTED BY A THIRD PERSON, WHO HAD COME ALONG THE ROAD 49
BEFORE ROSE WAS AWAKE, MRS. DAMEREL CAME INTO HER ROOM 71
SHE TOOK HER BAG IN HER HAND AND NOISELESSLY STOLE OUT 81
[Illustration]
A ROSE IN JUNE.
CHAPTER I.
[Illustration: M]
“Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things. Let
the child alone--she will never be young again if she should live a
hundred years!”
These words were spoken in the garden of Dinglefield Rectory on a very
fine summer day a few years ago. The speaker was Mr. Damerel, the
rector, a middle-aged man with very fine, somewhat worn features, a soft
benignant smile, and, as everybody said who knew him, the most charming
manners in the world. He was a man of very elegant mind as well as
manners. He did not preach often, but when he did preach all the
educated persons in his congregation felt that they had very choice fare
indeed set before them. I am afraid the poor folk liked the curate best,
but then the curate liked them best, and it mattered very little to any
man or woman of refinement what sentiment existed between the cottagers
and the curate. Mr. Damerel was perfectly kind and courteous to
everybody, gentle and simple, who came in his way, but he was not fond
of poor people in the abstract. He disliked everything that was
unlovely, and alas! there are a great many unlovely things in poverty.
The rectory garden at Dinglefield is a delightful place. The house is on
the summit of a little hill, or rather table-land, for in the front,
towards the green, all is level and soft as becomes an English village;
but on the other side the descent begins towards the lower country, and
from the drawing-room windows and the lawn, where Mr. Damerel now sat,
the view extended over a great plain, lighted up with links of the
river, and fading into unspeakable hazes of distance, such as were the
despair of every artist, and the delight of the fortunate people who
lived there and were entertained day by day with the sight of all the
sunsets, the midday splendors, the flying shadows, and soft, prolonged
twilights. Mr. Damerel was fond of saying that no place he knew so lent
itself to idleness as this. “Idleness! I speak as the foolish ones
speak,” he would say, “for what occupation could be more ennobling than
to watch those gleams and shadows--all nature spread out before you, and
demanding attention, though so softly that only they who have ears hear?
I allow, my gentle nature here does not shout at you, and compel your
regard, like her who dwells among the Alps, for instance. My dear, you
are always practical--but so long as you leave me my landscape I want
little more.”
Thus the rector would discourse. It was very little he wanted--only to
have his garden and lawn in perfect order, swept and trimmed every
morning like a lady’s boudoir, and refreshed with every variety of
flower: to have his table not heavily loaded with vulgar English joints,
but daintily covered, and oh! so daintily served; the linen always
fresh, the crystal always fine, the ladies dressed as ladies should be:
to have his wine, of which he said he took very little, always fine, of
choice vintage, and with a bouquet which rejoiced the heart: to have
plenty of new books: to have quiet, undisturbed by the noise of the
children, or any other troublesome noise such as broke the harmony of
nature: and especially undisturbed by bills and cares, such as, he
declared, at once shorten the life and take all pleasure out of it. This
was all he required; and surely never man had tastes more moderate, more
innocent, more virtuous and refined.
The little scene to which I have thus abruptly introduced the reader
took place in the most delicious part of the garden. The deep stillness
of noon, was over the sunshiny world; part of the lawn was brilliant in
light; the very insects were subdued out of their buzz of activity by
the spell of the sunshine; but here, under the lime-tree, there was
grateful shade, where everything took breath. Mr. Damerel was seated in
a chair which had been made expressly for him, and which combined the
comfort of soft cushions with such a rustic appearance as became its
habitation out of doors; under his feet was a soft Persian rug in colors
blended with all the harmony which belongs to the Eastern loom; at his
side a pretty carved table, with a raised rim, with books upon it, and a
thin Venice glass containing a rose. Another Rose, the Rose of my story,
was half-sitting, half-reclining on the grass at his feet--a pretty,
light figure in a soft muslin dress, almost white, with bits of soft,
rose-colored ribbon here and there. She was the eldest child of the
house. Her features I do not think were at all remarkable, but she had a
bloom so soft, so delicate, so sweet, that her father’s fond title for
her, “a Rose in June,” was everywhere acknowledged as appropriate. A
rose of the very season of roses was this Rose. Her very smile, which
came and went like breath, never away for two minutes together, yet
never lasting beyond the time you took to look at her, was flowery too,
I can scarcely tell why. For my own part, she always reminded me not so
much of a garden-rose in its glory, as of a branch of wild roses all
blooming and smiling from the bough, here pink, here white, here with a
dozen ineffable tints. Her hair was light-brown with the least little
curl in the world just about her forehead, but shining like satin on her
pretty head; her eyes too were brown, with a dancing gleam of light in
each; the delicate eyebrows curved, the eyelashes curved, the lips
curved, all wavy and rounded. Life and light shone out of the girl, and
sweet, unconscious happiness. In all her life she had never had any
occasion to ask herself was she happy. Of course she was happy! did not
she live, and was not that enough? Rose Damerel was the last dainty
ornament of his house in which her father delighted most. He had spoiled
her lessons when she was younger because of his pleasure in her and her
pretty looks, and he interfered now almost altogether with that
usefulness in a house which is demanded by every principle of duty from
the eldest daughter of a large family; for alas! there was a large
family, a thing which was the cause of all trouble to the Damerels. Had
there been only Rose, and perhaps one brother, how much more pleasantly
would everything have gone! In that case there might have been fewer
lines in the brow of the third person whom Mr. Damerel spoke to, but
whom the reader has not yet seen.
What Mrs. Damerel was like in her June of life, when she married her
husband and was a Rose too, like her daughter, it is difficult to tell.
Life, which often makes so little real change, brings out much that is
latent both of good and evil. I have said she was a Rose, like her
daughter--and so, indeed, she was still, so far as formal documents
went; but, somehow or other, the name had gone from her. She had
acquired from her husband, at first in joke and loving banter of her
early cares of housekeeping, while they were still no more than married
lovers, the name of Martha, and by degrees that name had so fastened to
her that no one recognized her by any other. Nobody out of her own
family knew that it was not her name, and of course the children, some
of whom were indignant at the change, could not set it right. In her
letters she signed herself “R. M. Damerel”--never Rose; and her
correspondents took it for granted that the “M” stood for Martha. That
she was careful and troubled about many things was the rector’s favorite
joke. “My careful wife--my anxious wife,” he called her, and, poor soul,
not without a cause. For it stands to reason that when a man must not be
disturbed about bills, for example, his wife must be, and doubly; when a
man cannot bear the noise of children, his wife must, and doubly; and
even when a clergyman dislikes poverty, and unlovely cottages, and poor
rooms, which are less sweet than the lawn and the roses, why, his wife
must, and make up for his fastidiousness. She had eight children, and a
husband of the most refined tastes of any clergyman in England, and an
income--not so much as might have been desired. Alas! how few of us have
so much as might be desired! Good rich people, you who have more money
than you want, how good you ought to be to us, out of pure gratitude to
Heaven for the fact that you can pay your bills when you like, and never
need to draw lines on your forehead with thinking which is imperative
and which will wait! Mrs. Damerel was well dressed--she could not help
it--for that was one of the rector’s simple luxuries. Fortunately, in
summer it is not so difficult to be well dressed at a small cost. She
had on (if any one cares to know) a dress of that light brown linen
which everybody has taken to wearing of late, over an old black silk
petticoat, which, having been good once, looked good even when tottering
on the brink of the grave. She was no more than forty, and but for her
cares, would have looked younger; but June was long over for this Rose,
and the lines in her forehead contradicted the softness of the natural
curves in her features. Those lines were well ruled in, with rigid
straightening, by an artist who is very indifferent to curves and
prettiness, and had given a certain closeness, and almost sternness, to
the firm-shutting of her mouth. I am afraid, though she had great
command of herself, that Mr. Damerel’s delightful and unbroken serenity
had an irritating effect on his wife, in addition to the effects
produced by her burden of care; and irritation works with a finer and
more delicate pencil than even anxiety. She had come out this morning to
ask Rose’s help with the children, to whom, among her other fatigues,
she had lately begun to give lessons, finding the daily governess from
the village impracticable. She had been called away to other duties, and
the children were alone in the school-room. She had just asked her
daughter to go in and take charge of them, and I scarcely think--let
alone the answer she had just received from her husband--that the sight
of this cool, fresh, delightful leisure in direct contrast with the hot
house, and the school-room, where all the children were more tiresome
than usual by reason of the heat, had any agreeable effect upon Mrs.
Damerel’s nerves. Such a contrast to one’s own frets and annoyances
seldom is deeply consolatory.
“Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things. Let
the child alone!”
The rector smiled, yet his tone was one of playful reproof. His was the
superior position. With the soft air fanning him, and the shade
refreshing him, and the beautiful landscape displaying itself for him,
and all the flowers blooming, the leaves waving, the butterflies
fluttering, the pretty daughter prattling, all for his pleasure, master
of the creation as he was, he was in a position to reprove any harsh and
hasty intruder who brought into this Paradise a discordant note.
“I do not want to burden her youth,” said Mrs. Damerel, with a resolute
quiet in her voice, which her children knew the sound of, and which they
all learned to recognize as the tone of suppressed irritation, “but I
think it would do Rose no harm, Herbert, to make herself useful a
little, and help me.”
“Useful!” he said, with a half-pitying smile; “the other roses are still
less useful. What would you have the child do? Let her get the good of
this beautiful morning. Besides, she is useful to me.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Damerel, faltering slightly, “if she is doing anything
for you, Herbert!”
“My dear,” said the rector, with a gentle elevation of his eyebrows,
“don’t confound things which are different. Doing something is your sole
idea of human use, I know. No, Rose is doing nothing--it helps me to
have her there. She is part of the landscape; suppose you sit down
yourself, instead of fretting, and enjoy it.”
“Enjoy it!” Mrs. Damerel echoed, with faint irony. She heard already the
noise of the school-room growing louder and louder, and Mary, the
housemaid, stood at the door, looking out anxiously, shading her eyes
from the sun, for the mistress. Some one was waiting, she knew, in the
hall, to see her; pray Heaven, not some one with a bill! “I am afraid I
must go back to my work,” she said, “and I hope you will come to me,
Rose, as soon as your papa can spare you. I have no more time now.”
Rose stirred uneasily, half-rising, and, with a prick of conscience,
made a feeble attempt to detain her. “But, mamma”--she began, as her
mother moved away, crossing the broad sunshine of the lawn with hasty
steps. Mrs. Damerel did not or would not hear, but went swiftly into the
house as they watched her, meeting Mary, who was coming with a message.
Her light dress shone out for a moment in the fierce blaze of the
sunshine, and then disappeared. When she was out of sight the rector
said softly, changing his position with the leisureliness of extreme
comfort, putting under-most the leg which had been upper-most, “What a
pity that your mother does not see the beauty of repose more than she
does! If I had not learnt long ago to take no notice, I don’t know what
I might not have been worried into by now.”
“Mamma never worries any one,” said Rose, flushing at once with
instantaneous opposition. The more she felt guilty towards her mother,
the less she would hear a word to her discredit. She blazed up quite hot
and fiery, with a loyalty which was a very good quality in its way,
though not so good as helping in the school-room. The father put forth
his fine ivory hand, and patted her pretty head.
“Quite right, dear, quite right,” he said; “always stand up for your
mother. And it is true, she never worries anybody; but I wish she had
more perception of the excellence of repose.”
“Perhaps if she had, we should not be able to enjoy it so much,” said
the girl, still giving expression to a slight compunction.
“Very well said, Rose; and it is quite possible you are right again. We
should not be so comfortable, and the house would not go on wheels as it
does, if she thought more of her own ease. One star differeth from
another star in glory,” said Mr. Damerel, who was fond of quoting
Scripture, almost the only point in him which savored slightly of the
church. “At the same time, my Rose in June, when you marry, yourself--as
I suppose you will one day--remember that there is nothing that worries
a man like being constantly reminded of the struggle and wear and tear
that life demands. He has enough of that outside in the world,” said the
rector, gazing out over the fair prospect before him, and again changing
the position of his legs, “without having it thrust upon him in what
ought to be the sanctity of his home.”
Rose looked at her father with a little dawning wonder mingled with the
admiration she felt for him. As a picture, Mr. Damerel was perfect. He
had a fine head, with beautiful and refined features, and that paleness
which has always been found to be so much more interesting than
brighter coloring. He lay half-reclined in his easy-chair, with his
eyes dreamily regarding the landscape, and the book he had been reading
closed over his hand. That hand was in itself a patent of gentility, and
his whole appearance confirmed the title. Somewhat fragile--a piece of
delicate porcelain among the rough delf of this world--not able to
endure much knocking about; fastidious, loving everything that was
beautiful, and supporting with difficulty that which was not, the rector
looked like a choice example of the very height of civilization and
refinement. And everything around him was in harmony: the velvet lawn on
which no fallen leaf was allowed to lie for an hour; the pretty house
behind, perfection of English comfort and daintiness; the loose morning
clothes, not more than half clerical, and perfectly unpretending, yet
somehow more fine, better cut, and better fitting than other people’s
clothes. Rose had for him that enthusiasm of admiration which a girl
often entertains for a handsome and gentle-minded father, who takes the
trouble to enter into her feelings, and make her his companion. I do not
know any more exquisite sentiment in humanity. She loved him entirely,
and he was to her a very model of everything that was most delightful,
kind, tender, and beautiful.
But as she looked at this model of man, his words somehow struck and
vibrated upon a new chord in the girl’s mind. “The struggle and wear and
tear that life demands.” Did Mr. Damerel have much of that “outside,” as
he said? He resumed his reading, but his daughter did not look again at
the book of poetry which lay open on her knee. Somehow a reflection of
the pucker on her mother’s brow had got into her heart--her mother, whom
Rose loved, but who was not an idol and model of excellence, like the
gentle and graceful being at her side. The contrast struck her for
perhaps the first time in her life. What was the meaning of it? Was it
because Mrs. Damerel did not understand the beauty of repose, or because
a woman’s business in this world is more detailed and engrossing than a
man’s? “Fancy mamma spending the whole morning out of doors reading
poetry!” Rose said to herself, with an involuntary silent laugh over the
absurdity of the notion. No doubt it was because of the difference
between man and woman; one of those disabilities which people talked
about; and perhaps (Rose went on philosophizing) women are wrong to
absorb themselves in this way in the management of their houses, and
ought to rule their domestic affairs with a lighter hand, not
interfering with all the little minutiæ, and making slaves of
themselves. She looked towards the house as she mused, and the vague
compunction which had been in her mind sharpened into something like a
prick of conscience. It was delightful being out here in the soft shade
of the lime-trees, watching when she liked the flitting shadows over the
plain below, and the gleam of the river here and there among the
trees--reading when she liked “Balaustion’s Adventure,” which was the
book on her knee. The significance of the old story embedded in that
book did not for the moment strike her. I think she was, on the whole,
rather annoyed with Mr. Browning for having brought down the story of a
woman’s sacrifice, all for love, into the region of even poetic reason.
To Rose, at that period of her development, it seemed the most ideal
climax of life to die for the man she loved. What could be more
beautiful, more satisfactory? Such an ending would reconcile one, she
thought, to any suffering; it gave her heart a thrill of high sensation
indescribable in words. How sweet the air was, how lovely all the
lights! Rose was just enough of an artist to be able to talk about “the
lights” with some faint understanding of what she meant. She was in a
kind of soft Elysium, penetrated by the thousand sensations of the
morning, the quiet, the flattering soft air that caressed her, the
poetry, the society, the beauty all around. But then there came that
sharp little prick of conscience. Perhaps she ought to go in and offer
the help her mother wanted. Rose did not jump up to do this, as she
would have done at once (she felt sure) had she been required to die,
like Iphigenia, for her country, or, like Alcestis, for her husband. The
smaller sacrifice somehow was less easy; but it disturbed her a little
in the perfection of her gentle enjoyment, and dictated a few restless
movements which caught her father’s eye. He turned and looked at her,
asking fretfully, with a look, what was the matter, for he did not like
to be disturbed.
“Perhaps,” said Rose, inquiringly, and appealing to him with another
look, “I ought to go in and see what is wanted. Perhaps I could be of
some use to mamma.”
Mr. Damerel smiled. “Use?” he said. “Has your mother bitten you with her
passion for use? You are not of the useful kind, take my word for it;
and make yourself happy, like your namesakes, who toil not, neither do
they spin.”
“But perhaps”--said Rose softly to herself--her father gave her a
friendly little nod and returned to his book--and she had to solve her
problem without his assistance. She tried to do it, sitting on the
grass, and it was a long and rather troublesome process. It would have
been much more easily and briefly settled, had she gone into the
school-room; but then I am afraid Rose did not wish it to be solved that
way.