had of late been very present with him, and to them were added those of
Rosamond's estimate of the amateur boatman. He waved his hand
graciously; but, before he could speak, Rosamond indignantly exclaimed,
"But you told me it was ten cents, and that people sometimes cheated
you, and that you were here in that poor old man's place, and--oh, I
can't _think_ of all the--things you told me."
A burning blush scorched the face of the ferryman. This was speedy
judgment indeed. But his courage rose to the emergency. He met the blue
eyes steadily with his dark-brown ones as he said, "I told you no
untruths, Miss May. My boat was, literally speaking, in the place of
that which the old man actually keeps here: I knew it must be, because
there was only one stake. I have been cheated, frequently and
egregiously: few men of my age, I imagine, have not. And I have great
faith in physiognomy. You _were_ my first fare; and I meant to accept
the ten cents,--I assure you I did. If you can think of any of the other
'things,' I shall be happy to explain them."
"It's all sophistry," she began, with something very like a pout.
But the professor gently interrupted her: "Let us not judge a kind
action harshly. Mr. Symington meant only to relieve you from an annoying
dilemma, and he naturally concluded that this would be impossible should
he disclose his real name and position. It seems that he merely allowed
your inferences to go uncontradicted, and was, practically, most kind.
An introduction between you is now scarcely necessary; but I am glad
that you have met. But for the fact that a selection would have looked
invidious, I should have asked you ere this to permit me to bring Mr.
Symington to see you."
"And will you--may I?" asked the culprit eagerly, glancing from one to
the other.
"That must be as Miss May says," replied the professor, with a kind
smile.
And Rosamond, ashamed of her unwonted outburst, gave Mr. Louis Symington
her hand, saying penitently, "I was very rude just now, and unjust
besides: will you forgive me and come with the professor to see me?"
"With pleasure,--with the greatest pleasure," he answered eagerly. "And
you will let me row you across? You will not make me miserable by
refusing?"
Rosamond glanced at the professor.
"To be sure we will," he said cheerfully. "I shall be glad of the
opportunity for a little conversation with you while Miss May is
executing her errand."
So he rowed them across; and then, while Rosamond discussed plaits and
gores with the new dress-maker, he discoursed his best eloquence and
learning to the professor, with such good effect that the latter said to
Rosamond, as they walked home through the twilight, having been
persuaded to extend the row a little, "I am glad, dear, that this
opportunity of presenting young Symington to you without apparent
favoritism has arisen. He is a most promising young man, but a little
inclined, I fear, from what I hear of him in his social capacity, to be
frivolous. We may together exercise a restraining influence over him."
"I thought he talked most dreadfully sensibly," said Rosamond, laughing;
"but I like him, and I hope we shall see him often."
They did. He called at first with the professor, afterward, at odd
times,--never in the evening,--without him. He persuaded Rosamond to
continue her patronage of his boat. Sometimes the professor went,
sometimes he did not. Mr. Symington was frequently induced to sing when
they were upon the water, and once or twice Rosamond joined her voice to
his.
The 30th of June had at last been appointed for the wedding-day. They
were to go to Europe at once, and spend the vacation travelling wherever
Rosamond's fancy should dictate. All through the winter she had
discussed their journey with the liveliest interest, sometimes making
and rejecting a dozen plans in one evening. But of late she had ceased
to speak of it unless the professor spoke first; and this, with the
gentle tact which he had always possessed, but which had wonderfully
developed of late, he soon ceased to do.
She was sometimes unwarrantably irritable with him now, but each little
fit of petulance was always followed by a disproportionate penitence
and remorse. At such times she hovered about him, eagerly anxious to
render him some of the small services which he found so sweet. But she
was paler and thinner than she had ever been, and Miss Christina
noticed, with a kindly anxiety which did her credit, that Rosamond ate
less and less.
May was gone. It was the first day of June,--and such a day! Trees and
shrubs were in that loveliest of all states,--that of a half-fulfilled
promise of loveliness. Rosamond felt the spell, and, in spite of all
that was in her heart, an unreasoning gladness took possession of her.
She danced down the path of the long garden behind the seminary and
danced back again, stopping to pick a handful of the first June roses.
It was early morning, and the professor stopped--as he often did--for a
moment's sight of her on his way from the dreary boarding-house to the
equally dreary college. She caught both his hands and held up her face
for a kiss. Then she fastened a rosebud in his button-hole.
"You are not to take that out until it withers, Paul," she said,
laughing and shaking a threatening finger at him. "Do you know what it
means,--a rosebud? I don't believe you do, for all your Greek. It means
'confession of love;' and I _do_ love you,--I do, I do."
"I know you do, my darling," he said gently; "and it shall stay
there--till it withers. But that will not be long. I stopped to tell you
that I cannot go with you this afternoon; but you must not disappoint
Mr. Symington. I met him just now, and told him I should be detained,
but that you would go."
"You had no right to say so without asking me first," she said sharply.
"I don't wish to go. I _won't_ go without you. There!"
He was silent, but his deep, kind eyes were fixed pityingly upon her
flushed, excited face.
She dropped it on his arm and burst into tears, and he stroked her hair
gently, as if she had been a little child and he a patient, loving
father. She raised her face presently, smiling, though her lips still
quivered.
"Do you really and truly wish me to go with--this afternoon?"
It seemed to him that for a full minute he could not speak, but in
reality the pause was so brief that she did not notice it.
"Yes," he said quietly, "I really and truly do. It would not be fair to
disappoint Mr. Symington, after making the engagement."
"And can't you possibly go, dear?" she asked entreatingly.
I think only one man was ever known to pull the cord which set in motion
a guillotine that took off his own head. But there is much unknown, as
well as unwritten, history.
"Not without neglecting some work which I ought to do to-day," he said.
"I think you care more for your work sometimes than you do for me."
There was a little quaver in her voice as she spoke. "And I wish you'd
stop behaving as if I were your daughter. I don't know what ails you
this morning; but if you go on this way I shall call you Professor Silex
all the time. How would you like that?"
A passionate exclamation rose to his lips, and died there. A spasm of
bitter pain made his face for a moment hard and stern. Then he smiled,
and said gently, "I should not like it at all, as you know very well.
But I must go now, or I shall be late for my class. Good-by, dear
child." And, parting her soft, curling hair, he pressed a fatherly kiss
upon her forehead.
She threw her arms about his neck, crying, "No!--on my lips." And,
pressing an eager kiss upon his mouth, she added, "There! that is a
sealing, a fresh sealing, of our engagement; and I wish--oh, how I
wish!--that we were to be married to-morrow--to-day!"
The professor gently disengaged himself from her clinging arms, saying,
still with a smile, "But I thought the wedding-gown was still to make?
Good-by. I will come early this evening and hear all about the enchanted
island."
For the expedition which had been planned by the three for that
afternoon was to explore a little island far down the river, farther
than any of them had yet gone.
Rosamond wore no roses when she went slowly down the bank that day,--not
even in her cheeks.
And when Louis Symington saw her coming alone, only the sunbrown on his
face concealed the sudden rush of blood from it to his heart.
"The professor could not come," she said hurriedly, "so he made me come
without him; that is--I mean--" And she stopped, confused.
"If you prefer to wait until he can go with us, pray do not hesitate to
say so," he replied stiffly, and pausing--with her hand in his--in the
act of helping her into the boat.
"Oh, I did not mean to say anything rude," she exclaimed penitently; and
she stepped across the seats to the cushioned end of the boat. "Of
course we will go; but perhaps--would you mind--couldn't we just take a
little row to-day, and save the island until the professor can go?"
"Certainly," he said, still in the same constrained tone; and, without
another word, he helped her to her place and arranged the cushions about
her.
The silence lasted so long that she felt she could bear it no longer.
"Will you please sing something?" she said at last, desperately, "You
know you sang that first day; and it sounded so lovely on the water. Do
you remember?"
He looked at her fixedly for a moment. Then he said simply, "Yes, I
remember," and began at once to sing. But he did not sing "Twickenham
Ferry" to day. He would have given all he was worth, when he had sung
one line, if he could have changed it into a college song, a negro
melody,--anything. For this was what he found himself singing:
"How can I bear to leave thee?
One parting kiss I give thee,
And then, whate'er befalls me,
I go where Honor calls me."
She would not hide her face in her hands, but she might turn it away:
how was he to know that she was not watching with breathless interest
the young couple straying along the bank, arm closely linked in arm, in
the sweet June sunshine?
"Thank you," she said faintly, when the last trembling note had died
away: "that was--very pretty."
"I am glad you liked it," he said, with quiet irony in his tones.
And then there was another alarming pause. Anything was better than
that, and she began to talk almost at random, telling of various
laughable things which had occurred among her scholars, laughing
herself, somewhat shrilly, at the places where laughter was due.
He sat silent, unsmiling, through it all until they stepped from the
boat. Then he said, "It is really refreshing to see you in such good
spirits. I had always understood that even the happiest _fiancée_ was
somewhat pensive and melancholy as the day of fate drew near."
"You have no right to speak to me in that way,--in that tone," she
cried, with sudden heat.
He bowed low, saying, "Pardon me; I am only too well aware that I have
no rights of any kind so far as you are concerned. But it is impossible
to efface one's self entirely."
"Now you are angry with me," she said forlornly; "and I don't know what
I have done."
"I angry with _you_!" he cried. "Oh, Rosamond! Rosamond!"
"I am glad if you are not," she said,--"very glad; but I must go--the
professor--" And she sped up the bank before he could speak again.
IV.
The professor came early to the seminary that evening, but Rosamond was
ready for him, dressed in a gown of some soft white fabric which he had
noticed and praised. She had roses in her hair, at her throat, in her
belt, but the bright, soft color in her cheeks out-shone them all.
She began, almost as soon as they had exchanged greetings, to talk
about her father, asking the professor how long he had known him, and
what Dr. May had been like as a young man.
"Very shy and retiring," he replied. "I think that was the first link in
our friendship: we both disliked society, and finally made an agreement
with each other to decline all invitations and give up visiting. We
found that everything of the kind interfered materially with advancement
in our studies. But your father had already met your mother several
times when we made this agreement. Their tastes were very similar, and
her quiet, tranquil manner was extremely pleasant to him,--for, as you
know, he was somewhat nervous and excitable,--so he claimed an exception
in her favor; and, after two years of most pleasing intellectual
companionship, they were married. It was a rarely complete and happy
union."
"And I suppose," said Rosamond, with a curious touch of resentment in
her voice, "that because he had never been like other young people, had
never cared for young friends and pleasant times, it did not occur to
him that I ought to have them? Oh, I don't see how he dared to rob me of
my rights,--of my youth, which could only come once, of all life and
pleasure and sunshine!"
"My dear," said the professor, looking very much startled and shocked,
"he had no thought of robbing you: he loved you far too tenderly for
that. You always seemed happy and bright, and you were very young when
he died. No doubt, had he lived until you were of an age to enter
society--"
But here she interrupted him with bitter self-reproaches.
"Oh, what have I said?" she cried. "He was all goodness, all love to me,
and I have dared to find fault with him! Oh, what a base, wicked girl I
am!"
A choking sob stopped her, but only one. She conquered the rest, and
made a forlorn attempt to change the subject.
"I had something to tell you to-night, dear child," said the professor,
when she was quiet again: "you seem tired, so I will make it as brief
as possible."
A startled look came into her eyes, and she was about to speak, when he
continued:
"Let me first say what is upon my mind, and then you shall have your
turn. I wished to tell you that I think we--I--have made a mistake. I am
too confirmed an old bachelor to fall into home ways and make a good
husband. I shall always love you as a dear young daughter, I shall ask
you to let me take in every way your father's place, but I think, if you
will let me off, that we will not have that wedding on the 30th of June,
my little girl."
She raised her eyes in wondering incredulity to his face. He was
smiling! He was speaking playfully! He was giving her back her freedom
with a light heart and a good will. Plainly, the relief would be as
great for him as for her. Laughing and crying in a breath, she clasped
her arms about his neck.
"Ah, how good you are! How I love you _now_!" she said, as soon as she
could speak. "All the time we have been engaged,--yes, even
before,--from the first I have longed to tell you that I would so much
rather be your daughter than your wife; but I thought it would be so
ungracious, after all your kindness to me. _Now_ we shall be happy; you
will see how happy I shall make you. And, oh, how good, how noble you
are to tell me, when, if you had not spoken,--yes, I should have married
you, dear father. I shall always call you father now: papa will not mind
it, I know."
The professor had nothing more to do or say after that until he rose to
go. But when she held up her glowing, sparkling face for his good-night
kiss, he once more parted the curls and kissed her on her forehead,
whereat she pouted a little, saying, with half-pretended displeasure,
"Papa didn't kiss my forehead: he kissed me _right_."
The professor passed his hand, which trembled a little, over her shining
hair, saying, with a paternal smile, "I shall kiss my daughter in the
way that best pleases me. I am going to be a very strict and exacting
father."
She laughed gleefully, as if it were the best joke in the world, and her
merry "Good-night, dear father," followed him as he went out into the
darkness.
He held Mr. Symington to his engagement to row Rosamond and himself to
the island, but he took with him a large canvas bag and a geological
hammer. And how, pray, could any one talk to, or even stand very near,
him, when he was pounding off bits of rock for specimens with such
energy that fragments flew in all directions? The sound of the hammer
ceased as soon as his companions had disappeared among the trees; they
were going to look for a spring, but, strangely enough, they did not
notice this. No need now for him to school his face, his voice, his
trembling hands. They found the spring.
And did my professor die of a broken heart, and leave a lock of
Rosamond's hair and a thrilling heart-history, in the shape of a
neatly-written journal, to proclaim to the world his sacrifice? No; that
was not his idea of a sacrifice. He burnt that very night each
token--and there were many--which he had so jealously cherished,--each
little, crookedly-written, careless note, and, last, the long bright
curl which, before her heart awoke, she had so freely given him.
It is true that there was a gradual but very perceptible change in him.
He had been indifferent formerly to the members of his class, excepting
from an intellectual stand point. Now he began to take an interest in
that part of their lives which lay outside his jurisdiction, to ask them
to his rooms of an evening, to walk with them and win their confidence.
Not one of them ever regretted that it had been bestowed.
MARGARET VANDEGRIFT.
"WHAT DO I WISH FOR YOU?"
What do I wish for you? Such swift, keen pain
As though all griefs that human hearts have known
Were joined in one to wound and tear your own.
Such joy as though all heaven had come again
Into your earth, and tears that fall like rain,
And all the roses that have ever blown,
The sharpest thorn, the sceptre and the throne,
The truest liberty, the captive's chain.
Cruel, you say? Alas! I've only prayed
Such fate for you as everywhere, above
All others, women wish,--that unafraid
They clasp in eager arms. So, little dove,
I give you to the hawk. Nay, nay, upbraid
Me not. Have you not longed for love?
CARLOTTA PERRY.
LETTERS AND REMINISCENCES OF CHARLES READE.
I knew Charles Reade in England far back in "the days that are no more,"
and dined with him at the Garrick Club on the evening before I left
London for New York in 1860, when he gave me parting words of good
advice and asked me to write to him often. Then he added, "I am very
sorry you are going away, my dear boy; but perhaps you are doing a good
thing for yourself in getting out of this God-forsaken country. If I
were twenty years younger, and enjoyed the sea as you do, I might go
with you; but, if travel puts vitality into some men and kills others, I
should be one of the killed. What is one man's food is another's
poison."
He was my senior by more than twenty years, and no man that I have known
well was more calculated to inspire love and respect among his friends.
To know him personally, after only knowing him through his writings and
his tilts with those with whom he had "a crow to pick," was a
revelation. He had the reputation of being always "spoiling for a
fight," and the most touchy, crusty, and aggressive author of his time,
surpassing in this respect even Walter Savage Landor. But, though his
trenchant pen was sometimes made to do almost savage work, it was
generally in the chivalric exposure of some abuse or in the effort to
redress some grievous wrong. Then indeed he was fired with righteous
indignation. The cause had to be a just one, however, before he did
battle in its behalf, for no bold champion of the right ever had more
sterling honesty and sincerity in his character, or more common sense
and less quixotism.
His placid and genial manner and amiable characteristics in his
every-day home-life presented a striking contrast to his irritability
and indignation under a sense of injury; for whenever he considered
himself wronged or insulted his wrath boiled up with the suddenness of a
squall at sea. He resented a slight, real or imaginary, with unusual
outspokenness and vigor, and said, "I never forgive an injury or an
insult." But in this he may have done himself injustice. Generally, he
was one of the most sympathetic and even lovable of men, and his pure
and resolute manhood appeared in its truest light to those who knew him
best.
While genial in disposition, he could not be called either mirthful or
jovial, and so could neither easily turn any unpleasant incident off
with a joke or be turned off by one. He needed a little more of the
easy-going good humor and freedom from anxiety that fat men are
popularly supposed to possess to break the force of collisions with the
world. Had he been more of an actor and less of a student in the drama
of life, he would have been less sensitive.
His conscientiousness and honesty of purpose were really admirable; and
rather than break a contract or disappoint any one to whom he had made a
promise he would subject himself to any amount of inconvenience. For
example, he would, whenever necessary, retire to Oxford and write
against time in order to have his manuscript ready for the printer when
wanted. Much, too, as he disliked burning the midnight oil or any kind
of night-work, and the strain that artificial light imposed upon his
eyes, he would write late in his rooms, or read up on subjects he was
writing about in the reading-room in the Radcliffe Library building till
it closed at ten P.M. He had, it will be seen, a high sense of duty, and
"business before pleasure" was a precept he never neglected.
In personal appearance Charles Reade, without being handsome, was
strongly built and fine-looking. He was about six feet in height,
broad-chested and well proportioned, and without any noticeable
physical peculiarity. His head was well set on his shoulders, and,
though not unusually small, might have been a trifle larger without
marring the symmetry of his figure.
His features were not massive, but prominent, strong, and regular, and
his large, keen, grayish-brown eyes were the windows of his mind,
through which he looked out upon the world with an expressive, eager,
and inquiring gaze, and through which those who conversed with him could
almost read his thoughts before he uttered them. He had a good broad
forehead, well-arched eyebrows, and straight, dark-brown hair, parted at
the side, which, like his entirely unshaven beard, he wore short until
late in life. In his dress and manner he was rather _négligé_ than
precise, and he bestowed little thought on his personal appearance or
what Mrs. Grundy might say. Taking him all in all, the champion of James
Lambert looked the lion-hearted hero that he was.
In his personal habits and tastes he was always simple, quiet, regular,
and he was strictly temperate. He had no liking for dissipation of any
kind. He found his pleasure in his work, as all true workers in the
pursuit for which they are best fitted always do. The proper care he
took of himself accounted in part for his well-developed muscular system
and his good health until within a few years of his death,
notwithstanding his studious and sedentary life.
Among literary men he had few intimates, and he was not connected with
any clique of authors or journalists. He thought this was one reason why
the London reviewers--whom he once styled "those asses the
critics"--were so unfriendly toward him. He was not of their set, and
some of them regarded him as a sort of literary Ishmael, who had his
hand raised against all his contemporaries, a quarrelsome and
cantankerous although very able man, and therefore to be ignored or sat
down upon whenever possible. He once said, "I don't know a man on the
press who would do me a favor. The press is a great engine, of course,
but its influence is vastly overrated. It has the credit of leading
public opinion, when it only follows it; and look at the
rag-tag-and-bobtail that contribute to it. Even the London 'Times' only
lives for a day. My books have made their way in spite of the press."
Speaking of publishers, he said, "They want all the fat, and they all
lie about their sales. Unless you have somebody in the press-room to
watch, it is almost impossible to find out how many copies of a book
they print. Then there is a detestable fashion about publishers. I had
to fight a very hard battle to get the public to take a novel published
by Trübner, simply because he was not known as a novel-publisher; but I
was determined not to let Bentley or any of his kidney have all the fat
any longer."
Trübner, I may mention, published for him on commission, and under this
arrangement he manufactured his own books and assumed all risks.